Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of ...

Ev w72 Home Affairs Committee: Evidence
the trained “house negro” from slavery days. The field negro’s sole intent was to escape, and maybe even to
cause a little damage to the master and his property.
7. A third obvious sign of major discontent was the creation of gangs and the start of the postcode wars. Yet
all of these signs were largely unheeded by wider society: all perceived to be a black problem. It’s black kids
killing black kids, so it’s our problem to address.
8. I believe that my past and my present gives me a unique understanding of this problem and the issues
that the Select Committee seeks to investigate. As someone who was at both of Tottenham’s “riots”, that is on
Broadwater Farm in 1985 and at the outset of the recent riot in Tottenham on 7 August I would like to provide
a perspective on the recent events that took place following the shooting of Mark Duggan on 4 August.
9. I was born and raised in Tottenham. Tottenham is where I was educated, I was a child of the Windrush
generation, and my generation were the first to enter into the education system en masse. They were not
prepared for us, unable to handle difference they excluded and expelled us in disproportionate numbers.
10. When I was eventually expelled from school I continued my education on the streets of Tottenham,
choosing to “hang out” with all the other black kids who had failed or been failed by the education system.
11. The first time that I was arrested was under the old Suspicious Persons Law, I was arrested for Sus. Six
of us were arrested outside of Marlborough Magistrates court, by five Flying Squad officers. We were accused
of having attempted to “dip” the handbags of three foreign looking women, none of whom were produced in
court. Of course we were found guilty; it was our word against theirs. The four from our group who had
previous were sent to Detention Centres. Two of us without previous were fined and given criminal records.
The thing is we were not simply victims of mistaken identity, these crimes did not happen! The five police
officers had been in the same courtroom that we had been in all through the morning session and into the
afternoon.
12. I can let you have the rest of my CV but nothing has helped to mould and shape me as much as the
incidents I mention. I went so far off of the rails that I didn’t think I could ever find my way back. But, I did!
I was a community worker on Broadwater Farm in the 1980’s. I became the spokesperson for the Broadwater
Farm Defence Campaign after the disturbances in 1985. I was a friend of Roger Sylvester and Cynthia Jarrett.
I spent three years as the Director of the Bernie Grant Trust’s Community Leadership Programme. I have been
an advisor to the Mets Trident Unit for four years, and established a black advisory group to engage with the
Met locally in Tottenham, BIAG. In addition, I work freelance as a specialist in providing support to the public
sector to meet the statutory requirements originally set out in the Race Relations Amendment Act. I am the
author of A Dialogue of Equals, which I wrote to support the NHS improve its engagement with minority
groups, whilst at the Department of Health.
13. I am also one of those people who all too often are dismissed as being an unelected representative of
the Black community. It is true that I am unelected, having never stood in a formal electoral process. However,
on 4 August the day of Mark Duggan’s death, my phones went ballistic. Members of Tottenham’s black
community, including Mark Duggan’s family, asked me for help, to come and give my support, and to share
my experience with them.
14. Many spectators and commentators have drawn comparisons between the August Riots 2011 and the
riots of Brixton, Toxteth, Manchester, Bristol, and Broadwater Farm of the eighties. The majority of them seem
to agree that Britain is a far more tolerant country today than it was 30 years ago.
15. For example, on one of the BBC News programmes last month, Edwina Curry rebuffed Darcus Howe
for linking the August riots 2011 with the riots and disturbances of the 1980’s by stating “You cannot link
what we are seeing today with the 1980’s, racism was almost respectable back then!”
16. Herein lies the problem! British society, white British society that is, tends to accept allegations of racism
retrospectively, but never in real time! Edwina Curry’s Conservative Government of the 80’s steadfastly refused
to accept that racism was the root cause of the riots. Her Government chose instead to dismiss it as “wanton
criminality”. And, just like the Government of today, their response was to demand that the judiciary gave
exemplary sentences to those convicted of participating in the riots.
17. Today, however, it is widely accepted that racism and oppressive policing were the key ingredients that
ignited the inner city riots of the 1980’s. Whilst it is a good thing that our experiences are finally being
acknowledged by those who were in power at the time, to do so now is not helpful. Acknowledging a wrong
twenty years down the line means that you can no longer engage with the “victims” of that wrongdoing to
assess the impact that it has had on them.
18. The failure to acknowledge these wrongdoings in “real time” has helped to create a sense of
powerlessness, isolation and marginalisation that many in grass roots black communities have been unable to
overcome in later life.
19. Racism, especially institutional racism, is not a victimless crime. Its impact can be devastating and life
changing. That’s why, as a community, we welcomed the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, and the defining and
public acceptance of the term “institutional racism”.