'A dark day' Sadness as Rotherham residents clean up after riot

Was it naive to think it would be a peaceful protest, people wondered after a riot at a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham, where windows were smashed, police attacked and a fire escape was briefly set ablaze with 250 people trapped inside.

- Robyn Vinter

The demonstration was to be held at 12pm on Sunday outside the Holiday Inn Express in Wath-uponDearne, known locally as Wath, a village north of Rotherham. But the hotel is no stranger to protests.

It had become the scene of antiimmigration outrage in the past - though few anticipated what a terrifying turn Sunday would take.

But the signs that it would be a flashpoint for violence had been there all along. It is an area with deep, decades-long community tensions and a history of clashes over immigration. Over a weekend of escalating violence it flared again.

Among the substantial group of local people who had come to tidy up yesterday morning the mood was sombre. There was a huge sense of exasperation with their own community and those who stoked violence from further afield.

They recalled only half an hour of peace before the first missile was thrown. Within two hours more than a dozen hotel windows were broken, rioters had entered the hotel and, in what police described as a "particularly sickening moment", attempted to set the building on fire. It was, police said, "a concerted effort to cause...serious harm to those inside".

One local resident, Susanne, said she had come for a peaceful protest on Sunday but was shocked at what began to unfold: "It was disgusting.

When I saw them attack the police, I was nearly crying." She added: "The adrenaline was pumped and they didn't care what trouble they get into, they were gonna keep going."