A DOZEN members of infamous Burnley hooligan firm the Suicide Squad are set to appeal against sentences for violence after a Premier League clash with Blackburn Rovers.

Ringleaders Andrew Porter, Daniel Tempest, Paul Hartley and Mark Hamer are among those asking law lords for more lenient sentences over the October 2009 confrontation.

The quartet led a mob of ‘roaring, screaming and grunting’ Clarets fans towards rival Rovers supporters outside the Cherry Tree pub in Blackburn.

But police managed to intercept the two sides and prevented a mass brawl, in the wake of the East Lancs derby clash at Ewood Park.

Nearly 50 people were arrested during a five-month long inquiry and mobile phone records and CCTV footage was seized as evidence. Four crown court trials heard evidence that there had been a planned confrontation between the Suicide Squad and ‘Blackburn Youth’.

Porter, 44, of Parliament Street, Burnley, never even made it to the pub after his taxi got lost.

He was jailed for five years and banned from football grounds for 10 years.

Hartley, 26, of Church Street, Burnley, was jailed for four years and also banned from grounds for a decade.

Tempest, 27, of Mitton Grove, and Hamer, 28, of Olivant Street, both Burnley, were jailed for 50 months and 44 months respectively and issued bans.

Thomas McDonough, 23, of Valley Road, Barnoldswick, Stuart Craig, 23, of Haverholt Close, Colne, Ian Grice, 37, of Herbert Street, Padiham, Scott Page, 26, of Huntroyde Close, Burnley, Joshua Gornall, 22, of Northview, Eastburn, near Keighley, and Sean Widdop, 24, of Hornbeam Way, Manchester, were also convicted.

They received jail terms ranging from three-and-a-half years down to 21 months and banning orders of between seven and eight years.

The length of sentences imposed on all 12 by Judge Graham Knowles QC last January are being challenged at the Court of Appeal in London on Thursday.