Community buys toys for asylum seeker children

Mr Hollinshead saw the events unfold outside the Mercure hotel

Children living in a hotel housing asylum seekers are to be given sweets and toys after an outpouring of community support.

Anti-immigration protesters descended on the Mercure Hotel in Bristol on Saturday.

Almost £2,000 was raised in a matter of hours after the incident, which saw counter-protesters form a barricade to stop people getting in.

Matt Hollinshead, a trade union organiser who set up the fundraising effort, said he was inspired to act after seeing the faces of "really scared" children in the hotel windows.

The hotel was at the centre of flashpoints on Saturday night

Having been part of the counter-demonstration in Castle Park on Saturday afternoon, Mr Hollinshead described the "horrible" scenes leading up to the protesters arriving at the Mercure Hotel.

"You could see the kids in the hotel windows looking really scared - kids my kids' age," he told BBC Points West.

"If any other kid in Bristol had their house stormed, or try to be stormed, by a mob then the community would gather around them and try to look after them, and so that's what we should be trying to do here as well."

Ms Mayo said the fundraiser had collected more donations than they could possibly spend in just hours

Fellow trade unionist and social worker Toni Mayo, who also helped organise the fundraiser, said: "I can't imagine what it was like for the families in the hotel, who've travelled all that way through all sorts of danger to be here and it's supposed to be safe, and then have a mob like that descend on them.

"If it hadn't been for the counter-protesters then what happened in Rotherham could have happened here."

A Holiday Inn Express housing asylum seekers in the South Yorkshire town was targeted on Sunday, with rioters smashing windows to break into the hotel and setting a bin on fire before pushing it through a broken door.

Both Mr Hollinshead and Ms Mayo told the BBC of their hopes that the huge community response to their fundraiser was a greater indication of Bristol's attitude than the violent scenes seen on Saturday.

"I think a lot of people in Bristol really felt strongly that the racist protesters don't represent us and they wanted to make it clear that migrants and refugees are welcome in Bristol, it's racists that aren't," Ms Mayo said.

"I was really really impressed by how quickly people put their hands in their pockets for these kids," added Mr Hollinshead.

The protesters "are not what the city is about," he said, "but looking after kids really is".

The volunteers purchased the treats on Monday evening

The pair were able to use the funds to buy trolleys full of toys and sweets on Monday evening, and are aiming to give the treats out as soon as possible.

After facing questions about why police were not already at the hotel on Saturday ahead of protesters arriving, Avon and Somerset Police Deputy Chief Constable Jon Reilly said on Monday: "I’d like to reassure people that we had officers outside until they were required to respond to disorder nearby where the risk was deemed to be greater.

"As soon as we became aware that the two groups had gathered outside, officers returned within minutes."

The force has so far arrested 17 people involved with the disorder on Saturday, with two men charged.

More arrests are expected to be made in the coming days, Det Ch Con Reilly said.