For five days and nights during a balmy summer in August 2011, London burned. 

‘Transport had stopped, the place next to the party shop was on fire, the betting shop had a TV thrown through its window and Debenhams was ransacked,’ recalls Clapham resident Amy Davis. 

‘There were young men and women attacking riot vans and throwing bricks, and from what we were hearing things were only getting worse.

‘As I watched the violence unfold, I just felt so sad – and so angry that this was happening to my community, where I grew up.’

As the capital and other English cities, including Birmingham, Liverpool and Nottingham, became engulfed in fire and violence, rows of police faced off against protestors and looters. 

Five people lost their lives and 200 were injured. Nearly 3,000 homes and businesses were attacked, and 3,000 people were arrested.

Yet, on the riots’ tenth anniversary, the question not only seems to be how have we remembered the unrest that began on August 6 2011, but rather if we recall it at all – and what legacy it left behind?

It was the fatal shooting of Tottenham man Mark Duggan two days earlier that sparked the trail of destruction and civil disobedience which ran rife across England.

The 29-year-old had been killed by specialist firearm officers from Operation Trident, a unit within the Met Police that exclusively investigated gun crime within London’s black communities. 

The father-of-four was believed to have taken a minicab to collect a gun and, when intercepted, brandished the weapon in the direction of the police. Within hours of his death, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had briefed the press, with one spokesperson suggesting that shots had been exchanged with the police. 

It was only through news coverage a day later that Duggan’s family learned he was dead.  

By lunchtime on 6 August, the police had been warned by several groups, including community leaders and councillors, that they could be facing local unrest if questions surrounding his death were left unanswered. 

That evening 300 people – many friends and relatives of Duggan –  marched peacefully to the doorstep of Tottenham Police Station. Hours later, following little response, the protest escalated into full-scale riots. 

As word spread across social media, similar disturbances across the capital and beyond followed and news crews captured images of our cities smashed up and in flames.

When the riots finally ceased, the public would learn that the initial verbal reports of a ‘shoot out’ between Duggan and the police may have been wrong. The IPCC admitted they may have ‘inadvertently’ misled journalists into believing the Tottenham man had fired first. 

A jury would also eventually hear that, despite the verdict of a lawful killing, forensic evidence did not support the argument made by the firearms officers that he had the gun in hand. 

‘Things could have been very different if only the police had worked with the family instead of keeping the whole community in the dark,’ remembers Leroy Logan OBE, former superintendent and founding member of the Black Police Association (BPA), who was working on police security planning for the 2012 Olympics at the time.

‘I remember the incident ringing alarm bells. I was concerned about how the case was handled and how the family were treated.’

Broadwater Farm, the London estate where Duggan grew up, had already seen its fair share of civil unrest owing to constant tensions between the local community and police.

In 1985, a night of protest and violence erupted after a black woman, Cynthia Jarrett, died from heart failure while police searched her house. 

Mark Duggan’s death brought with it a continuity to perceptions of heavy-handed police tactics in black communities. 

‘(The police) not only suffer from challenges stemming from institutional racism but also institutional amnesia when it comes to how you treat certain communities,’ says Leroy. ‘They refuse to learn lessons from the past.’ 

The Met and the IPCC later issued apologies to Mark’s family after failing to inform them of his death but, a decade later, dissatisfaction with police conduct and broader issues of racism seems to have only grown louder. 

Just last year thousands took to the streets, including MP Dawn Butler and actor John Boyega, to protest institutional racism – spurred on by the unrest in America following the death of George Floyd, who was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin. 

In response, the government commissioned an independent report investigating these claims, but concluded that the UK was, in fact, not institutionally racist. 

For many, such findings felt predetermined and characteristic of the government’s disinterest. The report was symbolic of a decade where racism has been treated as a marginal topic rather than a vital political challenge. 

‘The first step towards better relationships with these communities is an acknowledgement that this problem isn’t a figment of our imagination but has real evidenced backing,’ explains Athian Akecc, a young Londoner and former member of the UK Youth Parliament.

‘I was eight at the time of the riots and I only came to know of it in a very limited capacity, but it does feel that the issues of racism, alongside poverty and inequality, are still here. It’s of little wonder why the riots feel so unexplored if we still struggle to even accept the frustrations that sparked them.’

To Athian’s point, the data is telling and there’s little wonder why feelings of injustice brought forward by those 300 protestors at the steps of Tottenham Police Station seem to still persist 10 years on.

Black people are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, more likely to be tasered, excluded from school and sectioned under the mental health act while half of youth offender’s institutes are filled with black boys. 

Back in 2011, as police forces across the country struggled to grapple with the unfolding crisis and the then London Mayor Boris Johnson met with some of the people of Tottenham, Parliament was also trying to understand why so many parts of the country would riot in response to an isolated incident within North London. 

While the government, then led by David Cameron, took the view that it was down to ‘criminality, pure and simple’, Professor Tim Newburn offered a different explanation in a research project called Reading The Riots, which explored the nature, motivations and experiences of those who rioted.  

His findings suggested that while the historic mistreatment of black communities was a key component in the ignition; poverty, affluence, class and geography played a strong role in who participated.

Recalling the interviews he conducted with young people involved in 2011, Professor Newburn says, ‘They told us, ‘‘we have very little. What we have is diminishing, the government is making it worse, and we feel it’s deliberate”.’ 

‘Very few would call criminality pure, and it is certainly never simple’, adds Leroy. 

Yet, while 24-hour courts ensured arrests and convictions were swift, the policy response was limited. A number of interventions already in place, such as the Troubled Families programme, aimed at helping families turn their lives around, were repositioned as part of the response.

David Cameron’s government also began associating the riots with a perceived growth in gang crime and before any inquiry had taken place, the prime minister told MPs that ‘gangs were at the heart of the protests and have been behind the coordinated attacks.’

‘What people saw on the street didn’t chime with the rhetoric,’ Amy recalls.

‘The violence I was seeing wasn’t gangs, and it wasn’t just young black men. It was everyone. Angry at issues not being dealt with, resources being taken away, the lack of funding into communities for young people.’

Amy, a 36-year-old training manager who still lives in Clapham, once believed the riots were mere opportunism. However, 10 years on, having reflected on a decade of increasing police tensions with both ethnic minorities and women, drawing parallels to the Met’s heavy-handed response to the vigil for Sarah Everard, her assessment has changed. ‘I now see clearly what people were feeling,’ she says. ‘While a small part of it was simple looting, there was a shared sense of anger. 

‘People were saying “we want this to happen. We want you guys to see that we’re angry. We want the police to know we don’t want to be treated like this anymore and we’re going to show that with violence as that’s the only way we can display it.” It’s sad that we talk a lot about gangs and violence in these areas but not about that feeling of anger and injustice.’

The Met Police’s response to the riots was to form the ‘Gangs Matrix’, a database to identify potential gang members or victims. 

While 80% of names on it belonged to young, black boys – the youngest being just 12 –  35% of the individuals had no intelligence linking them to gang violence and never charged with a crime. Children were even unknowingly being added for actions as minor as sharing YouTube videos of drill music. 

As Amnesty International warned that the Matrix was at the heart of a ‘racialised war on gangs’, a 2018 report for the current London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, eventually forced the Met to remove hundreds of names due to the damage it was doing to their life chances and its targeting of black people.

‘(The Matrix) was never anything to do with the riots,’ explains Professor Newburn. ‘It was dreamt up before then. The riots occurred and they just linked the two.

‘People didn’t need to do much research to know that it had nothing to do with gangs. There was a determined attempt not to discuss (the events) politically and not to respond in public policy terms or with government money.’

‘Either they genuinely didn’t believe the riots were a consequence of social problems, or they just didn’t want to respond to those problems.

‘And I think they were successful,’ adds Professor Newman. ‘They shut down the debate and people were genuinely encouraged to move on.’

Father who became peacemaker in 2011 riots has ‘lost faith’ in British justice

A father who became a national figurehead for peace after losing his son during the 2011 riots has ‘lost all faith’ in the justice system.

Tariq Jahan appealed for calm the day after his ‘angel’, Haroon, 21, was hit by a speeding car as he protected local businesses in Birmingham.

Tariq’s impassioned plea outside his home is credited for halting the onslaught of violence, arson and looting threatening to engulf the city.

A decade on from the riots that began in London before fanning out to other parts of the country, he described the justice system as a ‘lottery’, with his calls for a public inquiry going unheeded.

But the 56-year-old also said his burden has been eased though his ‘awe-inspiring’ experiences helping others with a charity established in his son’s memory, the Haroon Tariq Jahan Foundation.

Haroon and brothers Abdul Musavir, 30, and Shahzad Ali, 31, died in the early hours of August 10, 2011 after being hit by the car as they defended property in Winson Green…

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He also suggests that he hasn’t ‘seen anything in public life or policy in the past 10 years which makes (him) feel that the lives of the kinds of people that were caught up in the riots in 2011 – or the youngsters who are now the age of those in the riots – are likely to be in any way better.’

As one of those ‘youngsters’, Athian agrees. He also expresses worry about a continued insidious approach to policing and policymaking when focused on certain areas and groups.

‘These riots were clearly about more than racism, but I feel the causes of crime in our communities aren’t always linked to deprivation but to our blackness,’ says Athian, adding that without honest reflection, this feeling of injustice will only deepen.

‘No society which is functional should have people not feeling invested enough in to the point where they will riot… If people need to steal rice, what is that telling you about the lives they are having to live?

‘There’s a lack of investment into the inner cities where this all happened. We hear a lot about levelling up, but we aren’t seeing it in the places that really need it.’

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Today, Haringey, the borough where the 2011 riots originated, has changed considerably. 

New build apartments populate the skyline as artisan coffee shops replace the burned husks of local markets and Lyca Mobile sponsored newsagents. Tottenham is a community in flux. But the borough still faces significant challenges.

Four in 10 children live in households in poverty, the unemployment rate is double that of other boroughs, and they have the third-highest rate of households in temporary accommodation. 

The rate of knife crime is the highest in the city and people still feel the relationship between the local people and the police hasn’t improved much. Tackling gang crime may feel vital but alone it won’t resolve the problems for communities in areas like these across London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and the other affected areas.

Across Tottenham, graffiti signs of ‘RIP Mark Duggan’ are still visible. It is a small reminder that, regardless of political rhetoric, not everyone has forgotten what happened that summer. 

Yet, the riots seem to hold very little cultural or political resonance. There has been no romanticisation, no Cable Street-like-mural, no tv serialisation or popularisation in rap lyrics – its political and cultural legacy feels muted. 

‘It’s simply been forgotten because that was the intention,’ insists Leroy.

For Amy, however, the riots have left an impact. She can still remember how she grabbed her dustpan and broom and joined others keen to brush away a week of destruction. 

‘Anger subsides’, she reflects. ‘Even if we don’t remember the riots in all the right ways, one thing we know is that people will always come together, whether they are united in grief, or united in anger.’

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