A SERIAL anti-social behaviour offender has been jailed after he launched a racist rant at a shop manager and threatened to burn the store down.

Terrance Kerrigan was sentenced to 18 weeks behind bars after he shouted threatening, abusive and insulting words in a racist tirade at L’Occitane manager in Cornmarket Street, Oxford.

The 53-year-old shouted ‘go back to your f**king country’ and said he was going to burn the store down, the shop worker told the Mail.

She added Kerrigan became ‘aggressive’ and started swearing after she told him he couldn’t smoke a cigarette he was rolling in the shop.

She said: “He started being really aggressive and saying horrible things to me. He kept shouting.

“He said ‘go back to your f**cking country’ and said ‘I’m going to burn your store down with you inside, that’s what you deserve’. It was really horrible. I was devastated. I was working and he just came here to attack me with horrible words.”

Once police arrived, Kerrigan, of O'Hanlon House, Luther Street, Oxford, then racially abused an officer who arrested him on Wednesday, August 2.

The 53-year-old, who has been previously convicted of several anti-social crimes, was jailed on August 3 for the offences and breaching his criminal behavioural order for the third time.

The sentencing comes after Thames Valley Police and Oxford City Council launched its new way of tackling anti-social behaviour in the city centre. The new approach aims at helping vulnerable people turn their lives around, but Oxford anti-social behaviour officer Mike Ellis said Kerrigan had failed to engage with services offering support, adding his actions were 'unacceptable'

PC Ellis said: "He [Kerrigan] had a history of poor offending. He is a thoroughly unpleasant man.

"He was given a couple of chances. He has been offered all the support there is and he does not seem to take any of the support. The people that reach out for help, we are keen to support."

Kerrigan pleaded guilty to two counts of racially or religiously aggravated harassment, breaching his CBO and breaching a 14 -day suspended sentence. His CBO prohibited him from using profane, insulting, abusive or racist language, in any public place within Oxford City, entering Rose Place, Albion Place, Oxford and entering the grounds of building of St Aldates Church.