[Mrluvaluva]

Gordon Thompson has been sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in prison for setting fire to the Reeves furniture store in Croydon during the London riots.

Thompson, 34, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for arson, being reckless as to whether life was endangered and burglary.

He was part of a mob which had rampaged through Croydon town centre, looting Iceland and House of Fraser, before turning his attention to family-run House of Reeves.

The blaze was so fierce that buildings on the other side of the street and tramlines in the road caught alight.

Judge Peter Thornton told Thompson: "This was a deliberate, wilful act of shocking, dangerous vandalism."

"The Reeves family lost their historic business, something they and generations before had lived and worked for all their lives.

"Their loss is priceless. The trauma they have suffered is inestimable."

The business had begun trading on the site in 1867, and became such a part of the South London area that the road was named after the store.

Initially Thompson stole a laptop from inside the shop, then borrowed a cigarette lighter from another rioter and stepped inside what had been a display window, and set light to a sofa.

As the flames spread he boasted to a passer-by: "It was me. I did that. I burned Reeves Corner."

The inferno lit up the South London skyline, attracting the attention of the Skycopter which beamed live pictures which were seen around the world.





It became one of the defining images of the riots.

And the flames were so intense they leapt across the road and threatened nearby flats.

Members of the Reeves family were at the Old Bailey to see Thompson sentenced.

Outside the court Maurice Reeves, the owner of the furniture shop, said it was a "fair judgement".

"It has to be a deterrent," he said.

Earlier, his son Trevor told Sky News: "He (Thompson) just seems to be a person who's got caught up with the riots and has done something really stupid.

"I can't possibly imagine what goes through someone's mind to make them do that, especially as you're local and probably know what the place is, and what the place means to people.

"It's beyond my comprehension."

The court heard that the total financial loss to the Reeves family was an estimated £3 million.


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And deservedly so....