Man in northern England sentenced to 9 years in prison for arson with intent to endanger life

A man who set fire to a bin that was moved toward a door of a hotel housing asylum-seekers has been jailed to nine years in prison, the longest sentence handed to those involved in last month’s wave of far-right riots in England. At a sentencing hearing Friday at Sheffield Crown Court in the north of England, Thomas Birley pleaded guilty to the charge of arson with the intent to endanger life at the Holiday Inn Express hotel in nearby Rotherham. Judge Jeremy Richardson told Birley, 27, that his case was “unquestionably” one of the most serious of the dozens he has dealt with in the last month in relation to the rioting outside the hotel on Aug. 4.