The boy at the window

“Burn them all,” says a man as he walks past me. He’s referring to the people inside the hotel I’m standing in front of. His comment is far from unusual — I could have opened this article with many others. 

This report, from the violence in Rotherham yesterday, contains highly offensive language.

I arrived at the Holiday Inn in Manvers at around 1.30pm, after going to a planned protest in Sheffield. There was hardly anyone there, so I decided to head to Wath-upon-Dearne, a small town on the Rotherham/Barnsley border. I’d first noticed mention of the protest on the Wath Rant Page, a Facebook group which I’d joined last year to report on a story about online misinformation which led to a man being viciously attacked in his own home.

In the days running up to the riot, the group became febrile again in the wake of the shocking events in Southport. A message left by Wendy Baker Bielby on Friday read: “Holiday Inn Manvers 12 o’clock Sunday 04/08 Protest…get the grifters gone.” Some in the group tried to argue against the idea that the people in the hotels could be held in any way responsible for the murder of three children, but these voices were drowned out by a groundswell of hate.

Just after I arrived, a large downstairs window was smashed by the mob. The glass shattered; a cheer went up from the crowd. Rioters taunted the police. Later, a man walked past me shouting “dirty paki cunts” to anyone who would listen. As he did so, he carried a child in his arms. The boy couldn't be much older than two. 

Earlier, a small counter protest by Rotherham Stand Up To Racism had been present, but they’d left by the time I arrived — either moved on for their own safety by police or else justifiably frightened into leaving. After the ground floor window was smashed, the mood intensified and disorder grew. Initially the police didn’t seem to have enough officers there, meaning parts of the hotel were left completely unprotected. The rioters searched for rocks in the surrounding area before launching them at the hotel and the police. Every time a rock found its target and brought down another window a huge cheer went up. 

Not everyone in the 1,000-strong crowd took part in the violence or shouted racist abuse. Some looked like they were just there for a laugh; a recreational riot. Teenage girls giggled to each other as they shot the events on their smartphones while men on motorbikes pulled donuts on Manvers Way, the road which passes by the front of the hotel. Many were smoking cannabis with pungent plumes of smoke drifting across the crowd. “Jeff, pass me a Stella,” shouted one man as he returned to his mates and the crate of lager they had brought with them.

The crowd was predominantly, but not entirely, male. And almost entirely white. I counted about three black people in the couple of hours I stayed there. My impression was that the vast majority were local, either to Wath-on-Dearne or South Yorkshire more generally. There were Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield FC shirts among the crowd. Regular chants of “Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire,” erupted when the mob threw rocks at the hotel’s windows.

The mob kept moving around the hotel, looking for a weak point. Occasionally people could be seen at the windows, some staring out in wide-eyed horror and others covering their faces with scarves. While I was stood near the reception, a young boy in the hotel of around seven looked out of a window right at me. I would love to think he knew I wasn’t one of the hate-filled people I was surrounded by, but there’s no way he could have. I can still see him in my mind as I write this piece. The confused stare of a young boy who has no idea what’s going on and why these people seem to hate him so much.

By 2pm things had got significantly worse. “It’s brutal,” one woman said into her phone behind me. “They’ve smashed every window in the hotel and are battering the bobbies.” Moving round to the side of the hotel, the rioters caught the police by surprise and gained entry to the hotel. They were repelled but came back with a large bin and set it on fire. “They’re going to burn it down,” I heard a man near me say, his voice suddenly concerned over what might be about to happen. For a few horrible moments I thought he was right.

“You’re protecting them,” one woman shouted at three police officers on horseback. “They are raping and killing our kids.” One man shouted “nazis, fucking nazis” at the police, seemingly oblivious to the irony of what he’d just said. “Save our children,” some people chanted, including those who had brought their own children to a riot.

While what’s happening seemed to be a laugh for a lot of people, others stood further away on the opposite side of the road, looking worried; the gravity of what was taking place dawning on them. At one point two police helicopters hovered high above the hotel. As a journalist I would normally be asking people questions about why they were there but for the most part I was stood there open-mouthed or else genuinely scared for my safety. 

By around 3pm much needed police reinforcements gave them more control. An impregnable line of officers in riot gear formed around the hotel, sealing it off from the crowd. They would move several steps forward every few minutes, in a coordinated move to push the mob further back. Denied access to the hotel, some of the rioters try to set fire to an electricity transformer in the car park. As they piled the bits of broken up wooden fence around the metal box, the crowd looked on approvingly.

I would normally listen to music on the way back from reporting, but I drove home yesterday in stunned silence. Checking social media later, I saw that smaller pockets of disorder continued until nightfall, with bonfires lit on Manvers Way in front of police lines. South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard and local MP John Healey both issued statements condemning the riots. This morning, South Yorkshire Police’s assistant chief constable Lindsey Butterfield said 12 officers had been hurt in the riot, while police dogs and horses had also come under attack. She added that so far there had been six arrests, one in Sheffield and five in Rotherham. “Please be assured, if you were there, we will find you, and you will be held accountable for your part in yesterday’s violence,” she said.

But it isn’t surprising that the violence sparked by the events in Southport has found expression at hotels hosting asylum seekers. As The Tribune reported two years ago, these hotels around South Yorkshire have been a focus for dozens of videos produced by far right influencers, under names like “Yorkshire Rose” and “Active Patriot”. Their videos feed resentment by portraying asylum seekers living a life of luxury in beautiful surroundings. At the time of that report, the government acknowledged this reliance on hotels for processing asylum seekers was “unsustainable”. But the practice has continued, creating an obvious target for far-right thugs.

Members of the public were out in force this morning, cleaning up the area around the hotel. But much like the Holiday Inn at Manvers, this will take a long time to fix.