Police have released a video showing the moment one of their vehicles was set alight by a rioter in Bristol city centre.
Matthew O’Neill, of Browning Court in Patchway, South Gloucestershire, is captured on film using lit items to set a police vehicle on fire on March 21, 2021 when a peaceful Kill the Bill protest erupted into violence. The 31-year-old used a police shield to fan the flames and wielded a chair to smash the front window of a police van already well ablaze, a police investigation concluded.
O’Neill also used a police shield and baton to attack officers, as well as cause damage to the front of Bridewell Police Station. He was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday (May 23) at Bristol Crown Court after previously admitting charges of riot and arson at a prior hearing, on what would have been the first day of his trial.
