FOUR Asian men convicted of violent disorder during the Burnley riots claimed they took to the streets to protect their homes as they launched an appeal against "excessive" sentences yesterday.

Tariq Saddique, 28, Mohammed Bashir, 23, Asif Khan, 25, and Abdul Rahim Kayani, 19, began legal action to reduce their jail terms at London's High Court.

They were originally sentenced for violent disorder after charging a police line during the disturbances in June 2001.

The four were cleared of further violent disorder charges, which alleged that the group deliberately sought to engage with white people marauding through the Daneshouse district of Burnley.

Saddique was also found guilty of possessing an offensive weapon in the shape of a cricket bat, while Khan was convicted of carrying a sword.

Saddique, of Azalea Road, Blackburn, received three years for his offences; Bashir, of Forrest Street, Burnley, received a 30-month sentence; Khan, of Crankshaw Street, Burnley, received a two-year sentence; and Kayani, of Brougham Street, Burnley, received an 18-month term. Kayani had pleaded guilty to one charge of violent disorder, the other three were convicted by jury at Preston Crown Court.

A fifth youth, who cannot be named, also received a 12-month term after he was convicted of violent disorder.

The four are challenging the sentences, with Khan and Bashir also seeking permission to appeal against their convictions.

Ian Macdonald QC, for Saddique, said the group had armed themselves with "sticks, bats and in case a sword" in order to protect their home area "from threatened attacks by a white mob."

He told Lord Justice Clarke: "The point is that this wasn't a group of people who came together and gathered for what was initially an unlawful purpose. Our case is that initially what they were doing was lawful and became unlawful only when they started running at the police line," he added. Saddique had at one point tried to calm the situation by "ushering" a cluster of Asian youths "back into the confines of the area they were protecting," said Mr Macdonald.

White thugs trying to penetrate the police lines and maraud through Daneshouse were intent on causing "racial mayhem," he added, their range directed at Asian homes, shops and people.

An Asian charge on the police ranks bore little comparison with the "sustained vicious racist attacks that were made against police officers in some of these scenes," said Mr Macdonald, referring to video footage of the clashes.

"The illegality of charging the police line is on a quite different planet to the violence of the whites," he told the Appeal Court.

The four men's offences were against the background of inter-communal violence in which rioters set fire to property and overturned cars. The Duke of York pub -- which Mr Macdonald suggested had been a haunt of "hardcore racist thugs" -- was also torched in a climax of violence on June 24, 2001.

(Proceeding)