A man has been jailed for over 11 years for starting a fire that destroyed a 140-year-old furniture shop during last summer's riots in London.
Gordon Thompson, 34, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for arson, being reckless as to whether life was endangered at House of Reeves in Croydon, and burglary.
The fire was so intense that buildings on the other side of the street and tramlines in the road caught alight.
The court heard that the total financial loss to the Reeves family was an estimated £3m.
In a victim impact statement Trevor Reeves said: "The total destruction of the site has been a bereavement to me, I just can't understand what I have done to make someone do this to me."
Prosecutor Oliver Glasgow said of Mr Reeves' father Maurice: "At the age now of 80 he had worked in the shop since the age of 16. It was his life and, as he regarded it, his life had now been destroyed."
The shop had been in the family for generations, and Mr Reeves said: "I wonder with despair what my father and grandfather would make of the situation."
