A British man was on Friday jailed for nine years for arson at a hotel housing asylum seekers during anti-Muslim riots, by far the longest sentence imposed over recent widespread violent disorder.
Thomas Birley, 27, pleaded guilty to arson with intent to endanger life after he stoked a fire in a bin by an entranceway to a hotel near Rotherham in northern England on Aug. 4.
Prosecutor Alisha Kaye said Birley added wood to an already-flaming industrial bin, which had been placed in front of a fire door of the hotel while staff and guests sheltered inside.
Birley, who had also pleaded guilty to violent disorder and possessing an offensive weapon, was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court by Judge Jeremy Richardson, who said Birley's actions were "suffused with racism from beginning to end".
The hotel was targeted by around 400 people during days of rioting involving violence, arson and looting as well as racist attacks, which followed the killings of three young girls in the northern English town of Southport on July 29.