UK riots aftermath: live updates

• Police hit back at criticism of tactics by David Cameron • Man arrested on suspicion of murdering Ealing pensioner • Ealing man dies of injuries sustainted in riot attack • IPCC appeals for witnesses to Tottenham shooting • Send us your footage of the riots • Upload photos to our Flickr group and see others’ photos • Read our latest summary of events • Read our latest news story 3.21pm: 3.21pm: The first trouble began in Tottenham on Saturday evening after a vigil in support of Mark Duggan outside the local police station. One of the Duggan family grievances was poor communication from the authorities in the early stages. They were particulary upset at suggestions in media reports that Duggan had fired first. This article in the Sun, for example, states explicitly that police were fired on . A GUNMAN was killed by cops last night in a shoot-out in which an officer survived when a bullet seemingly hit his radio. He was downed by a marksman after firing first and hitting the officer. Witnesses said police had shouted at the man to stop but he ignored them. 2.52pm: In response to an inquiry by our correspondent Paul Lewis, the IPCC has sent this statement to the Guardian: Analysis of media coverage and queries raised on Twitter have alerted to us to the possibility that we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists when responding to very early media queries following the shooting of Mark Duggan by MPS officers on the evening of 4th August. The IPCC’s first statement, issued at 22:49 on 4th August, makes no reference to shots fired at police and our subsequent statements have set out the sequence of events based on the emerging evidence. However, having reviewed the information the IPCC received and gave out during the very early hours of the unfolding incident, before any documentation had been received, it seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged as this was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot and taken to hospital. Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident. This is significant, as much of the early media coverage referred to an “exchange of shots”, with some media outlets clearly implying that police had been shot at first. This issue is one of the key grievances of the Duggan family. 2.45pm: The IPCC has made another, potentially significant announcement. According to our reporter Paul Lewis , it has announced that it may have “inadvertently” led journalists to believe Mark Duggan, whose death in Tottenham led to the initial riots in north London, was shot at police first. 2.40pm: More on the case of the 24-year-old taken ill in custody. The Press Association reports that he was arrested by British Transport Police at Northwick Park underground station in north-west London on Wednesday afternoon on suspicion of possessing a Class B drug and an offensive weapon. Here’s the rest of the PA report: He was taken to Wembley Park police station’s custody suite but became ill and was taken to hospital, where he remains in a serious but improving condition. The incident was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) on Wednesday evening and an independent investigation has begun although officials have not yet spoken to the man. The IPCC has recovered CCTV from the custody suite and will also be checking for CCTV from the train and Northwick Park station. Commissioner Sarah Green, who will oversee the investigation, said: “We have met with members of the man’s family to discuss our role and our investigation will seek answers to the important questions they no doubt have.” The investigation will look at what happened when officers first came into contact with the man, through to his time in the custody suite, the cause of his illness and whether the police or custody staff could have taken any action to prevent the illness, which has not been specified, or seek medical assistance earlier. 2.33pm: Sky News is reporting that the Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched an investigation after a 24-year-old man was taken seriously ill in custody on Wednesday. We’ll have more on this soon. 2.30pm: At City of Westminster magistrates’ court in London , the security guards have told our reporter Jasmine Coleman that the court is sitting overnight again tonight and over the weekend to hear riot cases brought in after police raids across the city. 2.29pm: Our London blogger Dave Hill has highlighted an article by Wouter Vanstiphout, a professor in design and politics at the Technical University at Delft in the Netherlands, in Building Design magazine (registration required). In his piece, Vanstiphout warns against London suburbs descending into the lawlessness of the Paris banliues. He says the trouble with urban unrest is that it tends to sharpen the responses of politicians until they are even more simplistic and authoritarian than before. Riots have nearly always resulted in politicians simplifying the problem even more, and citizens looking away even further. After a riot, your average city will become more afraid, more authoritarian, more segregated, more exclusive and less tolerant. That is the real tragedy of the post-war western urban riot, first it shocks and terrifies us, then for a moment it makes us see flashes of the kind of city we should be working towards, which then fades away into the darkness. 2.15pm: This is Matt Wells taking over from Simon Jeffery. The home secretary, Theresa May , has been visiting the site of the Sony distribution centre in Enfield, north London, which was destroyed by a blaze after being hit by rioters on Monday night. She said the high numbers of police officers on the streets will be sustained until further notice, despite the UK having had a trouble-free few nights. We will be sustaining the numbers for a period of time. We have had some quieter nights but we are not complacent about that. The police will maintain their tough arrest policy, their presence on the streets. I’ve just been out in Hackney, east London, and there’s a significant police presence with officers on all the main roads. 1.47pm: The BBC has picked up on the weekly release by the Ministry of Justice of its prison population figures . The UK prison population is at a record high of 85,324 , up 440 since the riots hit. 1.38pm: A man appeared in court today charged with inciting violent disorder through posts on Facebook. Mitchel Stancombe, 20, of Totton, Hampshire, was granted bail until a further hearing at Southampton magistrates on 7 October 7. A man and a woman arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of attempting to incite violence on Twitter have been released on bail pending further inquiries. 1.32pm: There is a (satirical) Government should do something arbitrary and disproportionate about rioters Facebook page. (Via @paulbradshaw ) 1.17pm: Six-metre square CCTV images of rioters and looters are being driven around Birmingham city centre on a so-called digi-van . Meanwhile, police in Bristol have published more images on their Facebook page . 1.06pm: The Datablog list of cases before magistrates has turned up the case of a man remanded to jail overnight in Manchester who is accused of stealing items worth £1. Steven Keith, 43, of Kirkmanshulme Lane in Longsight, is accused of burgling M1 News. 12.50pm: John Prescott , a prodigious tweeter, has responded to Conservative MP Louise Mensch ‘s suggestion that Twitter and Facebook be shutdown in times of national emergency . @LouiseMensch You used parliamentary privilege to make false accusations about @piersmorgan. Why stop others free speech? #handsofftwitter Prescott has spent the rest of the morning retweeting people who found Twitter helpful during the riots, such as Tasha Halawa . 12.45pm: While Daily Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne’ s most recent article on the riots has been warmly received by those on the left (it equates feral youth with the “feral rich”) the same is not true for all his colleagues in the rightwing commentariat. The Liberal Conspiracy blog has put together what it calls “a quick list of commentators and their definitive answer to what caused the riots across the UK” featuring the likes of Melanie Phillips, Max Hastings and Toby Young and their views on “modern-day organic types”. 12.09pm: Nick Wilkie, the chief executive of London Youth , a network of youth clubs in Greater London, has put out the following statement. There are many questions to be answered about the causes. Anybody who claims to know precisely what’s at the bottom of this is at best premature. We need to be in calm, methodical listening mode for some time yet if we’re to get to the bottom of fixing what’s gone wrong. Clearly the police have shown great bravery. Yet, sadly, the police’s trust and credibility amongst young people in areas affected remains close to zero. We hear reports from calm, reasonable youth workers who feel that stop and search is often demeaning and not intelligence led. We’ve been speaking continuously to young people and youth workers in neighbourhoods across London. And if it’s too soon to be conclusive, some themes appear to be recurring. None is counter intuitive. None of these factors are sought as excuses by anybody who cares about London and about young people. But we need to say over and over that the vast majority of young people play an active and positive role in their communities. What we do know now is that well over 99% of young Londoners have had nothing to do with this. 12.02pm: This is a picture of Richard Mannington Bowes , who died last night after being attacked during riots on Monday, at his sister’s wedding. He was the fifth person to die after incidents connected to the rioting. A suspect was held in west London on suspicion of murder, rioting and carrying out three burglaries, police said. 11.55am: A UK riots clean up crowdmap created by our communities team has turned up a generous offer: use of a Mongolian-style yurt in Highgate , north London. Our Yurt offers a large room, overlooking woodland, two minutes from the tube, with electricity, an ensuite bathroom, and can sleep a family of five or more. Maybe someone affected by the riots just needs somewhere quiet to stay for a few days? Please get in touch. Katherine 11.37am: In Manchester a Salford teenager, Dane Williamson, 18, has been charged with criminal damage and recklessly endangering life over the blaze at a Miss Selfridge store in the city on Tuesday night. 11.07am: The Labour leader, Ed Miliband , has been visiting Brixton this morning, meeting business owners and people affected by the disorder. Among them was Lionel Owusu , supporters of the Peace in the Streetz campaign. Owusu said: We absolutely condemn the violence but you have to look at the causes – causes are not excuses. People have got nothing and would rather be top of the criminal world than bottom of society. You have to address their education and aspirations. Miliband said: It is very important that we come here and listen. This must not just be seven days in August which shook our country. We must have a proper national conversation and learn lessons from this. The fact that we are an unequal society is in the background of some of the things which have happened. 11.04am: I just asked on Twitter for links to fundraising activities for people who have been hit by the riots, and I’ve got a load of replies already. If you’ve got some spare time, money or expertise and you want to help in some way, here are some ideas. •  This website was set up to raise funds for Ashraf Haziq , the Malaysian student who was robbed by people who appeared to be helping him. It also has links to a number of other volunteer organisations. • To help people made homeless in Tottenham, you can donate materials at Tottenham Green leisure centre. The details are here . • A list of professionals who are offering their services for free or at a discount is here . If you have a particular expertise – labour, glazing, architecture, whatever – you can be listed here too. • If you want to help Aaron Biber, the 89-year-old Barber from Tottenham, whose premises were badly damaged and who has no insurance, this is the place . • This website has been set up to help Siva Kandiah , whos shop in Clarence Road, Hackney, was ransacked and destroyed, ruining the 11-year-old business. I’m sure there are many more – please add links in the comments. 10.43am: Live magazine in Brixton , south London has been getting quite a lot of attention in the last week. It’s a magazine-cum-community project for youths in the area. It’s got two must-reads by teenagers today: Elias Wachenje , who is 12, has written a piece ” Riots, by a 12-year-old “. He acknowledges the concerns of people in Tottenham over the Duggan shooting but goes on: Youths raided JD, Foot Locker and Curry’s across South London. I feel this completely defeats the point. It makes us look like thugs who want to look good and play XBOX360′s. In Clapham the only shop that wasn’t looted was ‘Waterstones.’ No joke. We steal trainers but not books. What are trainers going to do for us in life? In Brixton they looted Vodafone but left the library… The rioters have misrepresented the young community by attacking pointlessly and gaining goods that aren’t going to help them. A valid cause for protest has become a mass free for all shopping spree. A 15 year old, Joe Dolling , has written a piece headlined ” A new doomed generation? ” in which he is worred that young people will be branded “Britain’s failed youth”. He tries to analyse why so many young people were involved in the riots. Most young rioters are likely to be on their school holidays. Speaking from experience, there is usually a suffocating sense of boredom from such an extended period of essentially doing nothing. There is no doubt that many of those involved will have also felt this – I’m sure that the on-going riots will have given them ‘something to do’. It may be as basic as this; the selfish, destructive release of pent-up energy and the feeling of rebellion it will have given them. 10.33am: Another piece worth reading is by our economics editor, Larry Elliott . Two days a month, he takes time off from his day job writing about the collapse in the world economy to sit as a justice of the peace. It’s a really great insight into the work of magistrates . Larry describes how it’s “hard going” to engage with the people who come up before him on the bench: The temptation to bang them up and throw away the key is strong, and magistrates will no doubt be encouraged to do just that over the coming weeks. It is, though, not the way the courts work, and a good thing too. Despite what the politicians think, magistrates are not routinely soft. Formal sentencing guidelines mean that the courts can’t make it up as they go along. 10.15am: The Croydon Advertiser reports that two people arrested in connection with the fire that destroyed the Reeves furniture store have been released on bail . A third man has been released and no further action will be taken against him. 10.07am: The BBC has got a great zoomable image of the “peace wall” in Peckham , where residents have put up Post-it notes with messages of support for their community. 9.58am: The council in Ealing is to launch an appeal in memory of Richard Mannington Bowes, to help all victims of the riot in the borough. The council said it was flying the Union Flag over its town hall at half-mast today as a mark of respect for Bowes. 9.34am: A number of people in the comments have mentioned a Telegraph piece by Peter Oborne headlined: ” The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom .” It seems to have gone viral this morning – and it’s worth a read. Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates. The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation. 9.05am: Police have arrested a 22-year-old man over the death of Richard Mannington Bowes , who died last night after being attacked during riots on Monday. The suspect was held in west London on suspicion of murder, rioting and carrying out three burglaries, Scotland Yard said. He was the fifth person to die after incidents connected to the rioting. 9.01am: David Cameron’s new hardline stance on the “broken society” was analysed on a special edition of Question Time last night. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson – who drew a lot of praise on Twitter for his thoughtful responses from a rightwing perspective – described how Cameron is now trying to implement his “big society” vision with a top-down rather than a bottom-up approach. In the comments, DismantleTrident points to a speech on knife crime Cameron gave in 2008 when he said: If anyone thinks that criminal justice maesures alone will halt the violence on our streets, they don’t understand the scale and the nature of the social breakdown that is its cause. That is why we have to be utterly uncompromising on the key social reforms that will together help us repair our broken society. 8.38am: Ed Miliband , the Labour leader, has been attemping to stake out a clear political line on the riots. It’s a tough call: attempts to “understand” the rioters lead easily to calls of being “too soft”, as his deputy, Harriet Harman, found out after a Newsnight interview on Wednesday night. Miliband was on Newsnight last night and attempted to bury the Harman line, instead saying that criminality had to be condemned and calling for a public inquiry. He expanded the theme this morning on the Today programme, acknowledging that while the causse of the unrest were “complex” but adding” that some people have “lost their sense of right and wrong”. “This was individual criminal activity… but we have to go beyond that,” he said. He repeated his call for a public inquiry into the riots, and acknowledged failings under the previous administration. “I deeply regret that inequality wasn’t reduced under the last Labour government,” he said. 8.27am: Our reporters have been in many of the courts dealing with disorder suspects, and this roundup gives a great insight into the “frenzied activity” around the country. Thursday saw a relentless conveyer-belt of charges, some of them shocking in their alleged violence and brutality, others strikingly banal. Youssuf Addow, 25, charged with burglary of Phones 4 U in Putney, south-west London, carrying “a mallet, a weight and umbrellas”. Peter Morgan, 20, accused of stealing “four cans of spray paint, to the value of £28.92″ from B&Q in Hornchurch, Essex. Kaine Thorpe, 24, appearing on a charge of handling stolen goods, “namely Footlocker trainers and a mobile phone”. Again and again, the judges repeated the refrain “jurisdiction is declined”. They considered the maximum powers of sentencing available to magistrates – six months in prison, or a £5,000 fine – to be insufficient, and so referred the case to the crown courts, where the cases will be heard before a jury. Very few of the accused were granted bail. 8.23am: Police are continuing to update their arrest totals. West Midlands police say they have made 445 arrests connection with the disorder, West Yorkshire police have arrested 23 people, and the Metropolitan police have just sent out a new total, saying it has arrested 1,047 people, with 584 charged. 8.17am: More reports have been coming in from courts, which in many places have sat through the night. Chelsea Ives, 18, who is an Olympic volunteer, has denied offences linked to rioting in London. Ives, described as a “talented sportswoman”, is charged with two counts of burglary, violent disorder and attacking a police car. She allegedly threw bricks at a police car during disturbances in Enfield , north London, on Sunday. Ives, one of hundreds of volunteers who will help at the games in London next year, denied all four counts at City of Westminster magistrates’ court, according to PA. She was remanded in custody until next Wednesday, when she will appear at Highbury Corner magistrates’ court. 8.10am: All week we have been asking you to send in your own footage of the disorder. You can see readers’ footage here . 8.03am: Another area of conflict between the government and the criminal justice system is the issue of sentencing. The prime minister has indicated that he wants to see riot suspects remanded in custody and to be jailed when convicted. But in reality politicans have no power to force magistrates and judges to do this. Some politicians and prosecutors have already complained about lenient sentences. But we have been analysing the available data from the courts, and it shows that most defendants are being remanded in custory, even on relatively minor offences. 7.54am: David Cameron’s criticisms about police tactics in parliament yesterday have not gone down well with senior officers. The strongest response has come from Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police officers, in an interview on Newsnight on BBC2 last night . Earlier in the week, when Cameron came back from holiday, he made much play of telling the police he had authorised the use of more “robust” tactics and put water cannon at their disposal. Theresa May, the home secretary, said she had “ordered” the cancellation of police leave. But Orde stressed that the police force in Britain was independent of government, and that politicians had no influence over operational decisions this week. He said May had “no power” to order the cancellation of police leave and said Orde said it was “irrelevant” that senior politicians had returned from holiday. The fact that politicians chose to come back [from holiday] is an irrelevance in terms of the tactics that were by then developing. The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference; they were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics. Asked about budget cuts, he said they would “inevitably” lead to fewer police officers, making the task of policing more difficult. We need to have some very honest conversations with government about what we stop doing if we are to maintain frontline service delivery at current levels. It’s the 20% cuts in the present spending period that will lead to less police officers, we should be very clear about that. 7.43am: More on the death of Richard Bowes in Ealing . He lived in Haven Green and suffered serious head injuries during the attack, which took place at around 10.45pm on Monday. He died just before midnight last night –  you can read our full report here . Police have appealed for witnesses and for any images people may have recorded on mobile devices. Detectives have issued two CCTV images of a man suspected of carrying out the assault and said he was actively engaged in rioting and looting in the area. Detectives said the suspect was in the Ealing Broadway area from around 8pm onwards with a large group of people and appeared to be known to a considerable number of youths and young men who were also in the area. He is described as black with a big build and was wearing a white t-shirt with writing on the front with a dark coloured jumper over his shoulders. It is believed Bowes was a private man – it took police some days to identify him. His sister, Anne Wilderspin, 73, from Derbyshire, told ITV News of her shock. Her brother gave her away at her wedding, but they have been out of touch for 30 years. Speaking before his death was announced, she said: It was sort of unreal because you don’t think anything like that happens to a relative of yours. I mean we’ve been horrified by the reports of the riots and what’s been going on. It was a shock and it’s still a bit unreal in a way. I’m very sad that we have to see him like this, but in one way I’m very pleased that we could actually make contact again. So I’m mixed. Obviously I’m very sad that he’s been so badly injured. 7.35am: Scotland Yard says it has now arrested a total of 1,047 people in connection with violence, disorder and looting in London , with 584 charged. Hundreds of others have been arrested elsewhere in England. 7.30am: Good morning and welcome to our coverage of the aftermath of riots in England. Here is a summary of developments overnight. •  A man who was set upon by rioters in Ealing has died. Richard Mannington Bowes, 68, was left in a coma when he was set upon by a mob in Ealing during Monday’s disorder. It brings the death toll from the riots to five, after three men died in a Birmingham hit-and run, and one man died after being shot in Croydon. •  Senior police officers have rejected criticism of police tactics by David Cameron . In parliament yesterday, the prime minister said the initial response of police had been inadequate, treating the incidents as an event that needed to be policed rather than a series of crimes that needed to be stopped. Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said police tactics changed as a result of operational decisions, not “irrelevant” politicians. •  The government is resisting calls to halt its plans to cut police numbers. Cameron said the question was about the number of police available for front-line duty, which would increase. The government outlined measures to prevent further disorder, including action on gangs, measures to allow police to order the removal of face masks, and further co-operation with mobile phone companies and social network hosts. •  The Independent Police Complaints Commission has appealed for witnesses to the shooting by firearms officers of Mark Duggan, whose death spared the first rioting in Tottenham. The IPCC handed out leaflets in the area as its investigation continues. •  A Premier League match on Saturday between Tottenham and Everton at White Hart Lane has been postponed. But the Premier League said other matches would go ahead. UK riots Crime Police Simon Jeffery Matt Wells guardian.co.uk

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