Greater Manchester police's chief constable has claimed that copycat rioting broke out in Manchester in August after people saw rioters in London were "getting away with" their behaviour.
In an interview with the BBC Panorama programme, to be broadcast on Monday, Peter Fahy says: "A certain group of people saw what was happening in London and decided they seemed to be getting away with it.
"The authorities weren't in control and they decided they wanted their opportunity. I think you'd have to say, with hindsight, if London had been under control sooner we probably would not have faced the problems in Manchester."
The disturbances began in Tottenham, north London, on Saturday 6 August in response to the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan, 29, and spread throughout the capital and then across England.
By 8 August, by far the worst night of violence in London, there were around 6,000 officers on duty, of whom 1,900 had specialist public order training.
Greater Manchester's chief constable told the programme that the force is still tracking down hundreds of suspects from at least 300 crime scenes.
When the riots hit London, Manchester sent 100 public order officers to help.
"We knew what was absolutely critical was that there needed to be control of London. Because that was just creating more and more copycat violence up here," he added.
After three nights of watching coverage of rioters on the streets of London, the violence and looting spread to his jurisdiction.
His officers were taken by surprise at the level of organisation by criminals in Salford and Manchester city centre.
In the first eight weeks after the rioting, Manchester police made 232 arrests and by 1 November, more than 350 people had been arrested.
About half the adult offenders so far convicted come from the most impoverished neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester and more than a third of those brought before the court were under 17.
Of all those charged in relation to the Manchester riots more than 80% already had criminal records.
A preliminary report by the Metropolitan police into its own response to the rioting found that too few officers were deployed onto the streets of London during the first three nights of rioting from 6 August.
Around 3,000 officers were deployed across London on the first night – Saturday – plus 380 public order officers in Tottenham and the rest of Haringey borough.
By Sunday that had risen to nearly 4,300, while about 6,000 were on the streets on Monday.
"It soon became clear that even the increase to 6,000 officers was not enough and, as such, the number was increased to 16,000 for Tuesday night," the report stated.
The minister responsible for policing and criminal justice, Nick Herbert, said there was a public perception that police at times appeared to be standing back, but were in fact ensuring that it was safe to intervene rather than risk further injury or damage.
"I think it is common ground that we want the police and they themselves want to be able to deal with these situations very swiftly and to ensure that there is a rapid response if anything like this happens again."
Nick Herbert insisted that planned budget cutbacks will not be a factor in Greater Manchester police's ability to tackle future unrest.
"There are still going to be something like 6,500 officers in Manchester," he said of the policing levels once the service has dealt with a planned £50m budget cut.
The Met police review said the scale of the disorder and the speed with which it spread to 22 of London's 32 boroughs on a single night made it "unprecedented".
The force also said it was re-examining how it draws intelligence from social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
The riots in the capital followed the resignations in July of the then Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, and assistant commissioner John Yates in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
by Helen Carter taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/14/manchester-rioters-copied-london-violence
In an interview with the BBC Panorama programme, to be broadcast on Monday, Peter Fahy says: "A certain group of people saw what was happening in London and decided they seemed to be getting away with it.
"The authorities weren't in control and they decided they wanted their opportunity. I think you'd have to say, with hindsight, if London had been under control sooner we probably would not have faced the problems in Manchester."
The disturbances began in Tottenham, north London, on Saturday 6 August in response to the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan, 29, and spread throughout the capital and then across England.
By 8 August, by far the worst night of violence in London, there were around 6,000 officers on duty, of whom 1,900 had specialist public order training.
Greater Manchester's chief constable told the programme that the force is still tracking down hundreds of suspects from at least 300 crime scenes.
When the riots hit London, Manchester sent 100 public order officers to help.
"We knew what was absolutely critical was that there needed to be control of London. Because that was just creating more and more copycat violence up here," he added.
After three nights of watching coverage of rioters on the streets of London, the violence and looting spread to his jurisdiction.
His officers were taken by surprise at the level of organisation by criminals in Salford and Manchester city centre.
In the first eight weeks after the rioting, Manchester police made 232 arrests and by 1 November, more than 350 people had been arrested.
About half the adult offenders so far convicted come from the most impoverished neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester and more than a third of those brought before the court were under 17.
Of all those charged in relation to the Manchester riots more than 80% already had criminal records.
A preliminary report by the Metropolitan police into its own response to the rioting found that too few officers were deployed onto the streets of London during the first three nights of rioting from 6 August.
Around 3,000 officers were deployed across London on the first night – Saturday – plus 380 public order officers in Tottenham and the rest of Haringey borough.
By Sunday that had risen to nearly 4,300, while about 6,000 were on the streets on Monday.
"It soon became clear that even the increase to 6,000 officers was not enough and, as such, the number was increased to 16,000 for Tuesday night," the report stated.
The minister responsible for policing and criminal justice, Nick Herbert, said there was a public perception that police at times appeared to be standing back, but were in fact ensuring that it was safe to intervene rather than risk further injury or damage.
"I think it is common ground that we want the police and they themselves want to be able to deal with these situations very swiftly and to ensure that there is a rapid response if anything like this happens again."
Nick Herbert insisted that planned budget cutbacks will not be a factor in Greater Manchester police's ability to tackle future unrest.
"There are still going to be something like 6,500 officers in Manchester," he said of the policing levels once the service has dealt with a planned £50m budget cut.
The Met police review said the scale of the disorder and the speed with which it spread to 22 of London's 32 boroughs on a single night made it "unprecedented".
The force also said it was re-examining how it draws intelligence from social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
The riots in the capital followed the resignations in July of the then Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, and assistant commissioner John Yates in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
by Helen Carter taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/14/manchester-rioters-copied-london-violence
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