Political Following the initial disorder in Tottenham, the
constituency Labour MP
David Lammy appealed for calm, saying that "true justice can only follow a thorough investigation of the facts" and that Tottenham had had its "heart ripped out" by the riots. He said that rioters were not representative of the local community as a whole and insisted that the
Independent Police Complaints Commission must fully establish the circumstances of Mark Duggan's death.
Boris Johnson Streatham's Labour MP
Chuka Umunna condemned the violence in Brixton and Tottenham. Umunna called for the
BlackBerry Messenger service, used by some of the rioters to co-ordinate their activities, to be "temporarily disabled" between 6pm and 6am
BST. The use of BlackBerry Messenger to encourage violent disorder led to arrests – a
Colchester man was detained under the
Serious Crime Act.
John Randall, the Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip said: "It's a small minority of people causing the trouble. The events in Ealing brought it home, it's just down the Uxbridge Road."
Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP
Diane Abbott called for the introduction of a
curfew.
Newark MP
Colonel Patrick Mercer called for the deployment of
water cannon. In December 2010
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, had said that the deployment of water cannon by police forces on the British mainland was an operational decision which had been "resisted until now by senior police officers". On 9 August 2011, May rejected their use and said: "The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities."
Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor, said "The issue of water cannon would be very useful given the level of arson we are seeing here." Scotland Yard said officers did not have any water cannon and if their use was approved they would have to be brought over from
Northern Ireland. May said: "I condemn utterly the violence in Tottenham... Such disregard for public safety and property will not be tolerated, and the Metropolitan Police have my full support in restoring order." The deputy prime minister
Nick Clegg said that the riots were "completely unacceptable" and described the violence as "needless and opportunistic". London's mayor,
Boris Johnson, who cut short his summer holiday in Canada to return to the UK on 9 August, said: "I'm appalled at the scenes of violence and destruction in Tottenham"
Croydon Central MP
Gavin Barwell called the damage caused in the London Borough of Croydon "sickening". In a strongly worded criticism of what he deems to be a misplaced "hyper-sensitivity about race", dating back to the
Macpherson Report of 1999,
Civitas director David Green attributed the reluctance by police to use force to a fear of disciplinary action. He said that "officers in charge of [handling] a riot think it safer to wait for orders from the top". In a public speech on 15 August, David Cameron blamed a "broken society" in "moral collapse" – broad societal change themes common to his party's election campaign theme
Broken Britain. The city councils of Manchester and Salford were reported to be investigating their powers for ways of evicting tenants if they, or their children, have been involved in violence or looting in their cities. The
London Borough of Greenwich also stated on its website: "We shall seek the eviction of anyone living in council property if they are found to have been engaged in criminal acts."
International Several countries issued warnings advising caution to travellers visiting the United Kingdom during the riots.
Khaled Kaim, the Deputy Foreign Minister of the
Gaddafi government in Libya, called on Cameron to resign over the riots, stating that "Cameron has lost all legitimacy and must go", he also called for an international intervention in the UK against Cameron and accused Cameron of using Irish and Scottish mercenaries against rioters, mocking Cameron's comments on Gaddafi during the
First Libyan Civil War that year. In 2012, the Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari compared the situation and government response of the Syrian uprising to that of the 2011 England riots.
Press " graffiti on boards covering the windows of the
Cyber Candy store in Upper Bull Street, Birmingham, smashed in the riotsThe riots were described by one journalist as "the worst disturbances of their kind since the
1995 Brixton riots". Commentators likened the riots to the
Broadwater Farm riot of 1985, during which a police officer,
Keith Blakelock, was murdered. The disturbances were preceded by calls for better oversight of the Metropolitan Police, repeating observations which go back to the
murder of Stephen Lawrence and the
New Cross Fire. In April 2011 there was a large nonviolent march to
Scotland Yard as a result of the death of
Smiley Culture. The very widespread scale of the violence prompted comparisons with the
Gordon Riots of 1780.
The Daily Telegraphs editorial said: "What we have experienced in London and elsewhere since Saturday night is a wholly new phenomenon: violent disorder whose sole intent is criminal... In such circumstances, there can be only one response if the law-abiding majority is to be protected: the thugs must be taught to respect the law of the land the hard way."
The Telegraph also reported: "Tottenham riots: police let gangs run riot and loot: Britain's biggest police force is facing criticism after it let looters run riot in north London for almost 12 hours..."
The Guardian called on the public to back the police: "... Britain's 2011 riots have become a defining contest between disorder and order. In that contest, important caveats notwithstanding, there is only one right side to be on. The attacks, the destruction, the criminality and the reign of fear must be stopped. The rule of law in the cities of Britain must not only be defended against delinquent destruction. It must also be enforced." During the height of the riots,
The Guardian was accused of anti-Semitic incitement by the media monitoring organisation, Comment Is Free Watch (CiFW), after Guardian journalist Paul Lewis singled out
Hasidic Jewish residents who were not involved in the rioting. The content of his report stated, "The make-up of the rioters was racially mixed. Most were men or boys, some apparently as young as 10....But families and other local residents, including some from Tottenham's Hasidic Jewish community, also gathered to watch and jeer at police." CIFW responded by condemning the newspaper saying, "A 1,800 Guardian report doesn't mention the race, ethnicity, or religion of the rioters, somehow found it pertinent to note that some of those who gathered to jeer police were, allegedly, Hasidic Jews." As a result of the negative publicity,
The Guardian revised the story. In its 9 August leading article,
The Independent said the police's handling of
Mark Duggan's death "looks to have been poor", and that there is "context of mistrust of the police here". The paper added that "it is spurious to draw a connection between that disaffection [by the inner-city youth] and specific outbreaks of violence of the sort we have seen in recent days." Psychiatrist
Theodore Dalrymple wrote an opinion piece for the
New York Daily News, in which he blamed the "sense of entitlement" that he sees as being common among Britain's youth as a cause for the riots, and said that British youth are today among "the most unpleasant and violent in the world" as a result. Some journalists made comparisons between these riots and the
2005 riots in France. In both cases, the unrest started with the death of a young person during a confrontation with the police.
Public , Manchester. Many people called for the government to urge the police to deploy anti-riot methods often used outside Great Britain, such as
water cannon and
baton rounds (which have been used in Northern Ireland), the use of which has long been resisted by senior police commanders and politicians.
Pauline Pearce, a 45-year-old woman from Hackney, was filmed close to the rioting, furiously chastising looters over their criminal behaviour. She was seen holding a walking-stick and gesturing. and the national press. MP for
Hackney South and Shoreditch,
Meg Hillier, invited Pearce to the
Houses of Parliament. Speaking to
The Australian newspaper, Pearce described the looting and vandalism as being "heart-breaking" and also contrasted people's
relative poverty with expenditure for the
Olympic Games. Pearce was subsequently featured in
The Spectator, dismissing
David Starkey's view that
hip-hop culture was partly to blame for the riots. In September 2011, she was awarded the Team London Award at the annual Peace Awards by
Boris Johnson. 's
Heroine of Hackney speech On
Amazon, sales of
baseball bats and
truncheons increased significantly overnight. Three men killed in a hit-and-run incident in Birmingham, Haroon Jahan, Shazad Ali, and Abdul Musavir Tariq, were described as heroes for dying while attempting to defend their neighbourhood. Tariq Jahan, the father of 21-year-old victim Haroon, gave a speech appealing for calm, social unity and an end to the violence, hours after his son's death. Jahan was hailed as a hero and a patriot for helping to ease tensions in Birmingham; his influence was acknowledged by politicians and the national press, receiving an award at the 2011
Pride of Britain Awards. Conservative MEP
Daniel Hannan said of him: "Uncomplaining, in control of his emotions, Tariq Jahan reminds us of what it means to be British." The
Financial Times described Jahan as eloquent and inspiring, and said "His selfless intervention contrasted with the rapacious self-interest of the looters, and was a timely reminder of the obligations of community." Tens of thousands of users of social networking sites coordinated clean-up operations of their local shopping areas and streets. Some of these groups began being referred to as 'riot wombles', taking up brooms and other tools to clear streets of debris and wreckage, a term that was later used by Prime Minister
David Cameron during a speech on the aftermath of the riots on 15 August 2011. Social media sites Twitter and Facebook were also used for reporting information on the riots and to co-ordinate a voluntary citizens' operation to clear up riot-hit areas. In
Clapham Junction, dozens of volunteers carrying brooms turned out to assist with clean-up efforts. On Facebook, over 900,000 people joined a group entitled "Supporting the Met Police against the London rioters". There were several fundraising initiatives to help independent business owners re-build their businesses and livelihoods. On 17 August 2011,
Prince Charles and
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall visited areas of London, including the Tottenham Green Leisure Centre, which was transformed into an aid centre in the aftermath of the rioting and met families left homeless by the London riots. A petition was submitted to the UK government proposing that any convicted rioters have their benefit payments cut. This petition was signed by over 200,000 people. A petition on the UK government website demanding convicted rioters to be banished to the
Outer Hebrides of Scotland was set up in the summer of 2011. The reaction caused a public outcry in Scotland and eventually Westminster offered an apology to
Western Isles MP
Angus Brendan MacNeil.
Vigilantism By 20:00 on 7 August, the major rioting had spread to
Wood Green, but some riot police were on hand. On 8 and 9 August, people from
Indian,
Bangladeshi,
Pakistani,
Kurdish,
Turkish,
Sikh and English communities chased down masked youths in several areas of
North and
East London, including
Green Street,
Hackney,
Haringey, and
Tower Hamlets. Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan praised the community for their brave and responsible reactions to the crisis. locals and supporters of
Millwall F.C. in
Eltham, and the
Sikh communities in
Southall,
Sangat TV and
Sikh Channel urged their viewers to protect
Sikh temples after a report that one was attacked in Birmingham. On the night of 9–10 August 2011, following violence, arson and rioting in London, members of the Sikh community in Southall volunteered to stand guard at various city
Gurdwaras, with as many as 200 to 300 Sikhs from different age groups gathered in various Gurudwaras across Southall to safeguard their places of worship from rioters, some armed with swords and hockey sticks. The Sikhs drew praise from Prime Minister David Cameron for this action. On 10 August in
Eltham, police clashed with a bottle-throwing crowd of about 200 vigilantes, including many
English Defence League members. It was reported that 50 EDL members joined forces with locals to patrol the streets. That same day, a senior police officer said that some vigilante groups were hampering police operations in London.
Race relations The ethnic makeup of the rioters varied in different cities: 76% of those arrested in Manchester were white, while 29% were white and 39% black in London, and the
West Midlands was the only area where more than 6% were Asian. Research conducted by the
University of Nottingham suggested that race relations in Britain deteriorated in the period following the riots and that prejudice towards ethnic minorities increased. After the hit-and-run incident in Birmingham, in which three Asian men were killed by a black driver, racial tensions between blacks and Asians in Birmingham increased; hostilities were defused by the public appeals for an end to violence by Tariq Jahan, father of one of the victims. The effects of
Black culture were discussed by historian
David Starkey in the edition of the BBC's
Newsnight TV programme of 12 August. Starkey singled out the influence of black
gangster and rap culture on youths of all races, contrasting contemporary
youth patois with the speech patterns of black Tottenham MP
David Lammy, who, Starkey asserted, "sounded white". The author
Dreda Say Mitchell countered his argument by saying that there is no one single "black culture". Some commentators remarked on the apparently high proportion of black people involved in the riots and took the view that there was a disproportionately high number of rioters who were black, compared to the overall demographics of the United Kingdom. As the Ministry of Justice has admitted "the group of people brought before the courts is only a subset of all people who took part in the public disorder". In February 2012 a report was published by the
Ministry of Justice providing demographic statistics of the people charged over participation the riots up to 1 February 2012 which revealed that 41% of those brought before the courts identified themselves as being from the White group, 39% from the black ethnic group, 12% from the Mixed ethnic group, 6% the Asian ethnic group, and 2% the Other ethnic group. These figures were disproportionate to the
average UK population; however the figures revealed varying demographics in different areas when compared to local populations. For example, in
Haringey, the figures revealed that 55% of defendants in court over riot-related charges were black, compared to a 17% Black population; in
Salford, 94% of rioters in court were white, compared to an 88% white population, and 6% of rioters were black, compared to a 2% black population. Additionally, looters from 44 foreign countries were jailed, with Jamaicans representing the largest group. The Ministry of Justice report also noted that rioters brought before the courts were disproportionately male (89%) and young (53% were aged 20 or under, with the number of "
juveniles" ranging from 26% in London to 39% in
Merseyside, and very few listed as over 40).
Police Operations , Director of Public Prosecutions The Metropolitan Police launched Operation Withern, an investigation into the events leading up to and during the riots. The operation was initially led by
Detective Superintendent John Sweeney of the Metropolitan Police, with detectives from the
Homicide and Serious Crime Command, specialist investigators from the Public Order Branch, and police support staff. Detective Superintendent Robin Bhairam, took over the post event investigation, where officers were drawn from all over the MPS, from different business groups, and placed into 10 Investigation Hubs across London. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Steve Kavanagh, stated that the number of officers deployed tripled between 6 and 7 August. The BBC reported that West Midlands riot police officers were issued with
plastic bullets to use against looters, but that none were fired. Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Stephen Kavanagh confirmed that police in London were considering using baton rounds against rioters, not previously used by mainland police in public order operations (though they were first approved for use in England and Wales in 2001). The
Metropolitan Police assigned 450 detectives to hunt for rioters and looters. The list of photographed looters was made available on their website. Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan of
Greater Manchester Police criticised "unprecedented" criminality. On 10 August, he warned: "Hundreds and hundreds of people, we have your image, we have your face, we have your acts of wanton criminality on film."
Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry, are reported to have contacted the police to offer help in investigating the use of their system for the organisation of riots. According to
The Independent, the costs to the Metropolitan Police of policing the disorder and disturbances in London were expected to exceed £34 million. This would have been more than their total bill for the policing of all major public disorder events in the year from April 2010 to March 2011.
Arrests and charges By 15 August 2011 around 3,100 people had been arrested, of whom over 1,100 had appeared in court.
Justice system Prosecutions Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the
Crown Prosecution Service Keir Starmer said that he thought that speedy prosecutions were more effective as a deterrent than long sentences. Some lawyers involved in the prosecutions criticised what they referred to as "chaos".
Sentencing guidelines It was reported in mid-August that some courts were advised by senior justice clerks to deal harshly with offences committed during the disturbances. The advice was said to tell the courts that they could ignore existing sentencing guidelines and hand down heavy sentences. Groups of lawyers complained that Crown Prosecutors were opposing bail in more cases than usual. Empirical evidence suggests tougher sentencing reduced riot-related offences, but that non-riot offences increased.
Trials and sentencing On 1 September 2011 the BBC reported that official
Ministry of Justice figures showed that of the 1,566 people that had appeared before magistrates on charges connected with the disorder, 1,027 had been in London, 190 in Greater Manchester, 132 in the West Midlands, 67 in Merseyside and 64 in Nottingham. Sentences of four years in a
Young Offender Institution were given to two males who promoted riots via Facebook. The proposed events in
Northwich and
Warrington were not attended by any other people. These sentences were affirmed on appeal by the
Court of Appeal. Giving the judgment of the court, the
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales,
Lord Judge, sitting with Sir John Thomas and
Lord Justice Leveson, stated that there is "an overwhelming obligation on sentencing courts to do what they can to ensure the protection of the public", that "the imposition of severe sentences, intended to provide both punishment and deterrence, must follow" and that "[t]hose who deliberately participate in disturbances of this magnitude, causing injury and damage and fear to even the most stout-hearted of citizens, and who individually commit further crimes during the course of the riots are committing aggravated crimes". The appeals were dismissed. On 25 April 2012, the Court of Appeal (Lord Judge CJ,
Openshaw & Irwin
JJ) increased the sentence imposed by the Inner London Crown Court on Adam Ahmadzai from four years detention to seven years detention for offences of violent disorder, robbery, burglary and criminal damage committed during the riots on 8 August 2011, following a reference from
Attorney General,
Dominic Grieve QC. The Lord Chief Justice stated that the offences were of the "greatest possible seriousness". A woman who had not taken part in the riots received five months for receiving a pair of stolen shorts. The sentence was later reduced on appeal. Greater Manchester Police used Twitter to celebrate the five-month sentence; they later apologised and removed the tweet. A teenager was freed when prosecutors found evidence he had been wrongly charged with arson. While in prison, his own flat was burned down. The detaining of under-18s without
criminal records was criticised by
UNICEF in October 2011 for possibly breaching the 1989 UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child. By August 2012, 1,292 rioters had been handed custodial sentences totalling 1,800 years at 16.8 months on an average.
Theatrical The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn presented a piece of new writing,
The Riots by
Gillian Slovo, which looked into the events over those days in August and the thoughts and opinions of a range of people directly involved and politicians. It transferred to the
Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham, about 400 metres from where the Mark Duggan protest took place, on 5 January 2012, and was due to run until 15 January. The piece included community leaders Stafford Scott and Martin Sylvester Brown, police constables on duty that night and a former resident of the Carpet-Right building, the burned remains now providing a reminder of the events. They were combined with the views of
Diane Abbott,
Iain Duncan Smith,
Michael Gove and Pastor Nims Obunge. It was received well by all critics, with 4 stars from
The Guardian. Australian mod rock band
the Feldons referenced the riots in their song "London Town" from their 2012 album
Goody Hallett and Other Stories. ==Suggested contributory factors==