It’s rare to see horror flash across a face as someone realises their fate.
Maybe it was the certainty he’d been nabbed by police in the course of a riot in Rotherham. Or maybe it was the dog biting firmly down on his arse.
Either way, the slack-jawed expression on one man’s face suggests pain and despair as he realises there’s no getting away.
Video shows one police dog pouncing on him as he holds a plank or stick in the smoke-filled air near a line of riot police.
As he tried to yank free of its jaws, the dog’s handler pulled him towards the wall of officers.
One of them slammed him in the face with a shield, knocking him back to the floor where the dog pulls his hoodie off over his head and rips his trousers.
Then another dog joins the fray, causing the man to straighten out and face the crowd, eyes tight and mouth wide open as the dog appears to bite him.
Roughly 700 people swarmed around a Holiday Inn hotel in Rotherham on Sunday, before smashing windows, storming the building and setting it on fire.
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People trapped inside – many of whom have fled war and persecution – watched on in horror as people chanted ‘burn it down’ and ‘get them out’, while some rioters ran rampant through the corridors.
‘If you were involved in the outright acts of violence and thuggery on Sunday, let me be clear – we are coming for you’, South Yorkshire Police warned, saying 51 officers were injured in the unrest.
It was one of many racist riots, supposedly starting as an anti-immigration protest, that have spread across the country since last week. Roughly 40 are planned for today alone.
They were sparked by misinformation spread on social media claiming a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for stabbing three young girls to death in Southport on July 29.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer threatened rioters with ‘the full force of the law’.
He said: ‘People in this country have a right to be safe, and yet we’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, attacks on mosques, other minority communities singled out, Nazi salutes in the street, attacks on the police, wanton violence alongside racist rhetoric, so no, I won’t shy away from calling it what it is: far-right thuggery.’
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