'Jail was hard' A year on, how do the Rotherham rioters feel now? Do any regret it?

It was a scene that became the defining image of the year for many. Flames licking up the side of a grey breeze block hotel with balaclava-clad men jostling around, kicking, smashing windows, throwing debris on the fire.

- Robyn Vinter

Protests were not uncommon outside the Holiday Inn in Manvers near Rotherham, which housed 200 asylum seekers, but there would be something different about Sunday 4 August 2024, coming after the murder of three young girls in Southport by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana days earlier.

It was not the first riot of the weekend instigated by the far right, but it would be the biggest and it would bring to a close a week of violent clashes between communities and the police.

The demonstration was supposed to be peaceful – at least, from the point of view of many of those who had gathered there to make a stand, as they saw it, against their town becoming a dumping ground for people the country did not want or know what to do with.

But from the very start it was clear there was a contingent who had planned to cause harm, to drive out the asylum seekers at any cost, perhaps even to kill them.

Later, authorities would be reeling from how close the events had come to being deadly, with police only just gaining control after rioters smashed their way into the hotel. It was a "dark day", according to Lindsey Butterfield, an assistant chief constable with South Yorkshire police.

Before the one-year anniversary of the violence, the Guardian spoke to a dozen men, aged 20 to 64 at the time, who received prison sentences for their part in the riot.

Most lived a few miles away from the scene and none considered themselves to be racist, though most demonstrated a readiness to believe racist lies spread on Facebook about the refugees living in their community supposedly raping women or children. And they were quick to take matters into their own hands, blaming all asylum seekers.

Although each of the rioters had distinctive motivations, there was a common theme of mistrust in authorities and the media. Some said they had seen Rotherham decline steadily over the years.