Man whose Facebook post sparked Rotherham asylum seeker hotel riot goes to ground

Demonstration organiser Connor McAllister had called for a peaceful protest outside the Holiday Inn Express at Manvers in Wath earlier this month – but a marauding mob pelted police with missiles, stormed inside the hotel looking to attack asylum seekers and attempted to set the building on fire in shameful scenes.

Dozens of police officers were injured in the disturbance on August 4 – with a string of people already convicted and jailed for their part in the violent disorder.

Mr McAllister, a 34-year-old self-employed plasterer from Wath, has not responded to calls from the media – and has since deleted his posts and locked down his Facebook profile.

Calling for a “peaceful protest” starting at midday, McAllister wrote: “Right people it’s time to wake up, take a stand make our area safe for our women and children.

“As most of you will already know, there’s hundreds of migrants been housed in the holiday inn on Manvers Way in Wath.

“As long as they are there it’s a potential risk to our community. Look what happened in Southport.

“That could be your child. We need them out.”

McAllister has not responded to media requests for comment. But in the aftermath of the violence he apologised via another post on his Facebook page.

“It was always our intention to keep it peaceful and for the first hour it was,” he wrote.

McAllister then went on to claim the protest “escalated out of control” because asylum seekers watching from the hotel windows made threats and indecently exposed themselves, though he did not provide any evidence of this.

McAllister had earlier spread misinformation about the Southport attack which saw three children stabbed to death and had called for far right activist, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the name Tommy Robinson, to get a knighthood.

He also posted: “Think we all need to get together outside the Holiday Inn on Sunday afternoon to push the b*******s out we’ve got in our area.”

Sharing misinformation about the Southport attack, he wrote: “Police are claiming the stabbings are not a terror attack. The man responsible came over last year as a refugee.

"We are under attack, they are killing our childen. We are paying to home them while they plan to kill us.

"Over 300 of them are in Wath Holiday Inn – what’s saying they are not planning an attack on children here?”

There are no known links between the suspect, identified as Axel Rudakubana, 17, and born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff, which sparked attacks on mosques and the Muslim community across Britain with disorder and violent scenes in a string of towns and cities.

In another post, sharing a clip of Robinson, Mr McAllister wrote: “Ohhhh Tommy Tommy – this man needs a knighthood,” along with a heart emoji.

And in another post ahead of the demo he wrote: “Right people, it’s time to wake up and take a stand. We need them out.

"Get your union jacks and your St George’s cross and lets turn up in big numbers to make ourselves heard. It’s a peaceful protest so no violence boys.”

During the violent scenes at the hotel in Wath, Mr McAllister shared a photo of himself draped in a Union flag, with the caption: “Keep Britain great.”

After organising the demo, he posted: “After recent demonstrations across the country have turned into violence and racial intent with innocent people getting caught in the crossfire, can I please ask anyone with violent or racial intent to stay away.”

"I don’t want our demonstration to be in the media for the wrong reasons and the actual point being forgotten.”