Painter's nine-year sentence longest yet of summer riots

A painter and decorator who helped fuel a fire outside a hotel housing hundreds of asylum seekers and attacked police with missiles during rioting in Rotherham has been jailed for nine years.

- DAVE HIGGENS

The prison sentence handed down to Thomas Birley, 27, is the longest so far given to a defendant arrested following the violence which erupted in many towns and cities in early August.

Sheffield Crown Court heard how Birley, of Rowms Lane, Swinton, Rotherham, was involved in many of the worst incidents outside the Holiday Inn Express in the Manvers area of the town, including adding wood to a fire in the large industrial bin which had been pushed against an exit and helping place a second bin on top of the one ablaze.

The recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, heard how 22 staff barricaded themselves into the hotel’s panic room with freezers and “thought they were going to burn to death” as smoke filtered through the building.

There were also more than 200 asylum seekers in the building and the judge heard how automated fire alarms told them to leave but they were trapped inside.

Masked Birley was filmed throwing missiles at the police, squaring up to officers while brandishing a police baton, and throwing a large bin which crashed into a line of police with riot shields.

The defendant became the first person to be sentenced for arson with intent to endanger life following the 12 hours of violence which left 64 police officers, three horses and a dog injured.