Man who posted about burning hotels amid Rotherham riot warned of 'likely' jail sentence

A 26-year-old engineer who posted "burn any hotels with those scruffy bastards in it" on social media as violence erupted outside accommodation for more than 200 asylum seekers is likely to go to jail, a judge has said.

Joseph Haythorne posted the comment on X, formerly Twitter, at lunchtime on August 4, 2024, just as an anti-immigration demonstration outside the Holiday Inn Express, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, began to descend into rioting, a court heard.

More than 60 officers were injured in the violence that afternoon as hundreds of people bombarded police and the hotel with missiles.

At one point rioters set fire to a bin against a fire door of the hotel, which had 240 asylum seekers inside as well as more than 20 staff, and some broke into the building.

Laura Marshall, prosecuting, told Sheffield Crown Court on Friday that Haythorne's post from an anonymised account, which was viewed by 1,100 people before he deleted it, included a link to a now-deleted post by the "perhaps divisive figure" activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson.

She said the defendant's full post read: "Go on Rotherham. Burn any hotels with them scruffy bastards in it."

Ms Marshall said the case had some similarities with the case of Lucy Connolly, who was jailed last year for 31 months after she posted on X: "Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f** hotels full of the b*** for all I care... if that makes me racist so be it."

The barrister also referenced the cases of Jordan Parlour, who received a 20-month jail sentence after he wrote on Facebook that "every man and their dog should be smashing f*" out of a hotel, believed to have housed asylum seekers; and Tyler Kay, who was sentenced to 38 months' imprisonment after using X to back calls to "set fire to all the f**** hotels full of the bastards".

Bianca Brasoveanu, defending Haythorne, said he posted the comment in a "momentary lapse of judgment which he regrets every day".

Ms Brasoveanu said her client deleted the post "within minutes" of posting it, telling the judge: "This speaks volumes for him - the realisation when posting of how horrible these words were.

"He realised straight away the seriousness of the sentence he published and deleted it. It goes to show that he immediately regretted his actions."

She said there was no evidence Haythorne had engrained views about immigration issues, was not affiliated to any far-right organisations and was more interested in football than politics.

The barrister said the defendant has problems around depression and a medical report has concluded that this could have exacerbated his reaction to social media content he had been reading about the murder of three young girls in Southport and, also, posts by the controversial influencer Andrew Tate.

But the Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, told the court: "Somebody who is looking at Andrew Tate's social media posts, and then taking these actions, is not suffering from a momentary lapse of judgment".

He added: "To suggested this is a momentary lapse of judgment by a generally decent young man is arrant nonsense."

Judge Richardson called Haythorne's post "vile" and "dreadful racist nonsense", saying it "inflamed the situation - almost literally" at the hotel.

Summarising the case, the judge said: "He's read the rubbish from Tate. It's revved him up.

"He's tweeted this racist rubbish, 1,100 people see it in 17 minutes before he realised it was dreadful and then he takes it down.

"And, unfortunately, the damage is done."

He added: "Unfortunately, it's had dreadful consequences."

Judge Richardson said: "If you put these posts out there, the potency of social media is so immense, you're going to be punished."

Haythorne, who is from Ashford, in Surrey, stood in the dock with a security guard wearing denim jeans and a blue polo shirt as the judge told him he would be remanded in custody ahead of his sentencing on Tuesday.

Judge Richardson told him: "I am reasonably confident that you will be going to prison. You have to. It is however, very important that I calibrate this sentence with great care."

He added: "There is mitigation in this case."

Haythorne admitted publishing material intended to stir-up racial hatred at a previous hearing.

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.