M.P.s press for tough action as riots continue

Press, 13 July 1981, Page 8

M.P.s press for tough action as riots continue

NZPA-Reuter London Street violence erupted again in London and several English towns and cities on Saturday night (British time) when gangs of black, and white youths pelted the police with bricks and bottles, and .looted shops. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting within the Government for tough . action to stem the unrest.

Youngsters took to the streets for the second night running in Birmingham, Britain's second-biggest city, the east coast fishing port of Hull, and the Midlands city of Nottingham.- Trouble was also reported in Leicester and Derby in the Midlands and the north-west town of Crewe. . . But the disorders were minor compared with Friday night’s orgy of .destruction in 14 London districts and-13 cities - and towns which brought calls for tough Government -action to. end the violence. • '. ■

London was fairly "quiet and the South-western district of Battersea remained the only trouble spot in the capital early yesterday. The police said that youths there hurled petrol bombs and looted shops.

Scotland Yard said there were 269 arrests in London and elsewhere during sporadic violence on Saturday night. Seventeen policemen were injured. Earlier, gangs of black youths broke into shops and fought running battles with the police in London’s predominantly West Indian

Brixton district, scene., ol serious disorders on Friday night. ' . . ’- About 300 youths, mainly. Asians, rampaged through Walthamstow, north-east London, after the funeral of a Pakistan woman and her three children killed, in an arson attack on their home.

The police in Hampshire, southern England, said that there had been trouble in the towns of Southampton, Aldershot, - and, Portsmouth. Four policemen were taken to hospital in’ Southampton after their patrol car crashed when it was stoned by a mob of black and white youths.

Shops were looted in the town of High Wycombe, north-west of London, which has a large Asian population. The police called in reinforcements from nearby towns after gangs of youths launched hit-'and-run attacks.

' Petrol-bombs were thrown when hundreds of black and white youths swept through the Handsworth area of Birmingham. In Nottingham, a mob attacked a busload of police reinforcements being moved in to stop cars being set on fire. Government Ministers came under mounting pressure to take tough measures against mob rule on the streets.

The Home Secretary (Mr William Whitelaw)' under fire for his ..handling of the mayhem caused by black, white, ;and Asian youths, said * special courts , would be set up. to mete but swift justice to rioters and. looters. The feeling among Ministers is

that the original riots in Brixton and Liverpool have complex and long-standing reasons behind them. <•/.'

But they feel that the state of street rioting in-.other areas is merely imitative hooliganism and has to be stamped on “hard and fast and sharp,” as one Whitehall source said.

Conservative politicians are pressing for.: stern measures to be announced in a parliamentary debate on the rioting on Thursday. They want a new Riot Act so that anyone who remains on the street after a warning can be arrested on the spot; trouble-shooting teams of police to arrest ringleaders of violence; the introduction of water cannon and other riot-control methods; and quick implementation of Government plans to fine parents of children involved in disorders.

The police have found Left-wing leaflets at the scene of several riots since the disorders began nine days ago. However, the London police hpve refrained from-accusing political agitators of deliberately exploiting the violence.

But a former Labour Minister and founder-member of the new Social Democratic Party, Shirley Williams, said a Marxist group had set up graining schools in Brixton and Liverpool's Toxteth area

— scenes of some of the worst violence.

Some 300 youths appeared in London courts at the week-end on charges stemming from the riots.