Inside the Riots Panorama

Tonight, face to face with Manchester's rioters. For the first

time, a police force tells the inside story of the worst disorder

in decades. I've certainly never seen that level of violence towards

police officers before. We hear from the rioters who took

on the police. I just picked a brick up, because obviously I'm

scared as well. And from those caught up in the madness on the day.

If it was a riot -- if it weren't a riot, then the next day I wouldn't

have been arrested. Are tougher sentences the answer? Of course it

was right the sentences were handed down. Their behaviour was

completely unacceptable. This is the story of the Manchester riots,

told bit people who were there. For three days in August, the

country held its breath as our biggest cities fell victim to

disorder on an unprecedented scale. As London and Birmingham burned,

the question was which city would be next? Here in Manchester the 9th

August began peacefully, but before the day was out, hundreds of

rioters swept through these streets and the neighbouring city of

Salford. They attacked police, wrecked livelihoods and callsed

millions of pounds worth of damage. Three months on the country is

still asking why. Greater Manchester is policed by the third

largest force in the country, they accept they were overwhelmed that

night bit scale of the scored. -- disorder. Emergency? I need police

assistance immediately. They're in the shop, taking everything.

They're coming towards us. How many youths are there?

Absolutely hundreds. This is my livelihood. Are you safe where are

you? I'm in the middle of it all. They're just crazy. What the hell

is happening in Manchester tonight? The man who has to answer to

Manchester's public is the chief constable, Peter Fahy.

Tell us why you think this happened? We think it happened here

because 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. They decided they wanted their

opportunity. It was as simple as some guy watching TV and thinked

he's got a TV for free, I want one. Absolutely. It was because of what

was on the television and that mob hysteria took over. Was it really

just copy-cat criminality, which left police facing a damage bill of

�9 billion? Where did you hear about the riots? Jeefr where. It

was -- everywhere. It was on the news. I went in to get some

cigarettes. Or does the explanation lie elsewhere. Everyone's sick of

the way things are. They're working a nine to five, in a factory every

day. I come out of work and I can't afford what I want to do still.

It's four days since the riots started in London, and Manchester

has so far escaped unscathed. But rumours are circulating that its

luck is about to run out. To reassure the public, police travel

in large numbers to Manchester City centre,. For the man in charge on

the ground, there is little sign of the mayhem to come. One of the main

recollections of the day is that 2.50pm, everything was quiet in

Piccadilly Gardens. Little did I realise about 50 minutes later I

would be deployed in Salford and that was the start of the things to

come for the rest of the evening. Immediately to the west of

Manchester's city centre lies Salford, home to 230,000.

Predominantly white, with above- average unemployment and ranked the

15th most deprived air why in the country. Raaz Fathwilkar live above

his electronics shop. So far it was business as usual. It was OK, until

about 2pm. Then there was like local people saying there's trouble

coming in Manchester. Then I said, there can't be. It looks normal,

everything normal. After 3.30pm, suddenly it's changed.

The neighbourhood is about to become a battleground.

Around Salford's central shopping precinct, anxious shop keepers

report threatening behaviour. In back streets like Brydon Close

police film youths breaking up bricks and breeze blocks. At 3.35pm,

riot police take to the streets. were faced with multiple numbers,

in excess of 100. The entrance to the estates all armed with bricks

and sticks. As soon as we alighted from our vehicles, we were under

attack. Faced with an aggressive mob, Craig

Thompson has to respond. Arrests are problematic, because everyone

you arrest, it takes two or three officers. So the tactic was

dispersal, which we did robustly through initial baton charges with

officers. The initial intention, it was clear,

was to cause massive disruption and use high levels of violence towards

the police. Having worked closely with the Salford community for 17

years, Alec McFadden is not surprised at the aggression shown

to the police. Salford is one of the most deprived communities in

Britain. You have a anti- establishment strong feeling across

the whole of Salford, in areas like this, across the country. Whether

you're a policeman, whether you're a civil servant, a Social Security

or a banker, you're the enemy. Simple as that. As the night-long

battle for Salford begins, word spreads that the riots have arrived.

In Manchester city centre, police advise businesses to close early.

You could feel the atmosphere. Every street corner, every nook and

cranny you went down, there were guys with hoods up, looking shifty.

We didn't want to stay open, didn't feel safe. The tension in the air.

You could tell something was going to happen. But while most people

are leaving Manchester, call centre worker Ricky Gemmill is walking

through the centre to see his goi. There were people in balaclavas,

fully covered up. There were people crying. It was chaos. I think

personally it was not intimidating for myself, but for other people, I

think it would have been pretty bad. As the last workers flee, the mood

turns threatening. I had a black guy on a bike circle me a couple of

times. He started laughing. I was just said to him "What are you

laughing about mate." He said, "You don't realise how lucky you are. If

you weren't black, I'd have robbed you, your keys and your store right

now." I started to feel nervous about the situation. The streets

are no longer safe. The violence and the looting begin. There were

only a couple of people who started ripping the shutters off and

everything. Then everybody jumped on the band wagon and joined in.

Within an hour, police receive more than 400 emergency calls, many from

panicked shop keepers and horrified onlookers. Emergency? A cash

generator has been broken into by the rioters. How many broken in?

100. Oh, God. In the city centre 120 riot police are trying to cover

a square kilometre. A police helicopter keeps watch to

coordinate responses. With police on the ground overstretched,

undefended businesses are ransacked, as looters seize their chance.

I just think people have walked out the shop and guys saying "Go in. Go

in." Next thing I know, the police are there.

Incident flare aup cross the city centre N broad daylight, a rioter

sets light to Miss Selfridge. Then CCTV captures the moment the

Arndale Centre, the city's main shopping mall is stormed and

breached. Police are quickly on the scene.

Standing outside in a precinct is Ricky Gemmell. He's not been part

of the looting, but now his way is blocked by the police advance.

aim wasn't to go out and riot. It was just to get out of town. I

wasn't able to, because of the police. Police try to drive the

crowds away from the area and through the precinct. One of them

pushed me. I've turned around and said, "Do what you want, don't push

me." He said to me, "Just move on you (BLEEP)" Ricky is heard

threatening the officer, something he denies. As I turned round the

riot police have dived on me and put me to the ground. They've put

in the van and took me to the police station.

Ricky is destined for a dubious distinction. He's charged with a

public order offence and becomes the first in the country to be

jailed for involvement in the riots. In Salford the campaign to restore

order is faltering. Several fires have been started and the police

are now pinned down in unfamiliar territory. Here it's their pitch

and their rules. They know the area better than us. Because they've lit

the fires, we're answering to them. Whole units are needed to protect

the fire crews from attack, which gives looters free run of the

shopping precinct. 500 metres away, in the violent struggle around

Brydon Close, the police suspect that this is no random mob.

I could tell that by the tactics there was a level of organisation.

Vehicles were burnt, blocking dual carriageways. They built some fence

as cross the road. You felt like sometimes you were being led into a

trap. Possibly into an area where lots of weapons had been stored

ready for further attacks. Groups were getting larger. The violence

had started to escalate to a grand scale. There's between 500 and 800

coming towards 30 cops. We need back up now. The police are on the

back foot as mob rule takes hold. I've never done nothing like this

The streets are now out of anyone's control.

It was such an increase in violence towards the police, than I think

any resources we would have had wouldn't have been enough. At 7.30,

with the fire crews out of harm's way, Craig Thompson gives the order

for the police to pull back from the heart of Salford. These new

vans at the top end of Salford, get into your vans and withdraw, please.

Withdraw from the area. The police are simply outnumbered. They need

to regroup and they need more resources. If a unit got isolated,

they would have taken a severe punishment, I think from the crowd

that were there. Watching the police move out, Raaz Fathwilkar

decide today was time to do the same. I was thinking, if I say here,

it's danger for the kids. Not about me or my wife, it's the kids. I

left the shop from the back. rioters briefly have the streets to

themselves and seize their opportunity. Only the police

helicopter remains, gathering vital images for the investigation to

come. You've got a car on fire on the car

park at lidle. There's looting going on at lidle. There's no

police there at all. Lidle supermarket is looted and torched.

Then a gang breaks into Raaz's shop. They tear his business apart and

then move into his family's home, You can see there, there's nothing

left. There's no word to say. Human person can't do this, they're evil.

Only evil person can do this. you think that Greater Manchester

Police failed that night? No, I don't think we failed. I don't

think local people feel we failed that night. Are we angry at what

happened? Yes. We care passionate about this city. We've agonised

over this. I don't think there was more we could have done. It was

just down to the size of the mob and the way they organised

themselves. You sent 100 officers who were trained in public disorder

to London. I'm guessing, as you saw it unravel in Manchester, you wish

you hadn't. Not really no. We knew what was critical, there needed to

be control of London. That was creating more and more copy-cat

violence up here. Because actually you feel you can stop it happening

in Manchester if London gets control? With hindsight, if London

had been under control sooner, we probably wouldn't have faced the

In Salford, Manchester Police are bolstered by officers from 10 other

forces. They are preparing to go back out. It is now thought that

underworld figures are among the mob, with their own motives for

attacking the police. In recent times the police have been

intensifying some of their work against organised crime, and they

feel they have been pretty successful. There is a view on the

street that some of the aggravation could have been linked directly to

that, people who had been affected by the clampdown, if you like,

retaliating, or, more lightly, winding local people up. Three

miles east, in Manchester City Centre, the disorder escalates.

Among those who have travelled in from surrounding areas are

organised groups alive to opportunity. 1 gang hit Bang &

Olufsen, leaving the high end hi-fi out late with a bill for �200,000.

The owner returns to try to salvage some stock, when a second wave of

looters get there. There was a looter over there, basically saying,

pass me the hi-fi system. It was quite frightening to be effectively

trapped, because that's our exit. He retreats to the storeroom, while

the gang clean out his business. After 15 minutes, a riot squad

arrived. The amount of police working in the city was just too

many, hitting too many places at the same time. You could see them,

they came to my shop, and instantly they had to go somewhere else.

Manchester, police regained control by 11pm, and made more than 100

arrests. But in Salford, their colleagues could make only 12 all

night. There, they are dealing with aggression, the like of which most

It's the end of the St! It was like a war-zone. Sergeant Ian Cunningham

has been facing the violence for eight hours. Mentally, it affects

you. I have certainly never seen that level of violence towards

police officers before. But the night is about to come to an abrupt

end for Sergeant Ian Cunningham. literally came out of nowhere, it

was a large breeze block, and it must have travelled at least 30

yards. As it hit my ankle, it knocked my leg from underneath me,

sending me to the floor. The crowd started cheering when I was hit and

sent to the floor. Sergeant Cunningham is taken to hospital,

his body armour saves him from serious injury. His colleagues

press on into the night, and finally regain control. Throughout

the night, 68 officers are injured by missiles, 40 of them in Salford.

Outnumbered, under resourced and fearing for their lives - that is

how one Manchester officer described the mood among his

colleagues that night. The Chief Constable of Manchester told me

that he might never have had the problems he had if London had got

control sooner. So, how effective was the policing across England

that week? These are testing times for the minister responsible.

Clearly, it appeared to the public that at times, the police were

standing off. Actually, sometimes the police were explaining that

they were waiting forces of friends -- for sufficient resources. But I

think it is common ground that the police want to be able to deal with

these situations very swiftly, to make sure that there is a rapid

response if anything like this happens again. Greater Manchester

police are facing budget cuts of �50 million. And they say that even

now they have not got enough resources... There will still be

something like 6,500 officers in Manchester. To suggest that the

cuts play any part in this, you know, it had only just started, so

you cannot use that in relation to On Wednesday 10th August, the

people of Greater Manchester are waiting -- waking up to find their

neighbourhoods ransacked. I need to know who did it. Whoever did it,

they need to get punished. response from Greater Manchester

Police was immediate. Hundreds and hundreds of people, we have your

image, we have your face, we have your acts of wanton criminality on

film. We are coming for you from today. In one of the biggest

investigations in the history of Greater Manchester Police, 220

officers are now dedicated to hunting down the rioters. The man

leading the investigation is Detective Chief Inspector Bob Tonge.

27 years in the police service, I have never seen anything like this.

Did Greater Manchester Police see this coming? Guess, we did. What we

this coming? Guess, we did. What we did not expect was the scale. This

is just a small selection. This is by no means the number of offenders

that we have had. The team is now looking for at least 700 suspects

from more than 300 crime scenes. The images on this wall have been

generated by a specialist unit. 112 people are studying thousands of

hours of video footage, intent on identifying offenders. It is a big

challenge for the leader of the team. It is a massive investigation.

Normally, we would be looking for five or six offenders, possibly

just one. On this occasion, we are looking for hundreds. Many rioters

are easily identified, but more experienced law-breakers had taken

precautions. You will see a small piece of footage where they have

turned a car over in the middle of Salford, jumping on top of it,

setting fire to it, but because the camera is quite far away, we cannot

get a facial image. This suspected arsonist is tracked on footage

throughout the day. He is shown attacking police. The next footage

you pick up could even be from somebody's hand-held mobile phone,

where they have been able to get a close-up of the face. Images like

this go out to the media, and across the force. The meticulous

work is paying off, and now some of the faceless, hooded criminals have

names and addresses. As soon as they're identified, we will go and

get them. Whatever crime they have committed, if they get identified,

Police, open the door! In the first eight weeks of the investigation,

police made more than 200 arrests. As the culprits are brought in, a

picture develops of exactly who took part in the riots. From

organised criminals who picked their targets to 12-year-old

children caught up in the madness. From the theft of a �5,000 plasma

TV to someone stealing a packet of go nuts. What is striking is the

range of criminality. But from this chaotic wave of offending, patterns

do start to emerge. This matter of Salford and Manchester gives us a

rough idea of where the rioters came from. The areas in red are

ranked among the poorest 5% of neighbourhoods in the country. If

we plot the addresses of the 71 adult offenders so far convicted,

around half come from these most impoverished neighbourhoods. Of

those brought before the court, 45% are claiming benefits related to

being out of work, while more than a third are under 17. Under

interview, police start to get answers to the key question, why?

This man from Salford, a 20-year- old father, has a history of

17-year-old Joshua Penney had no previous convictions, but stole a

packet of cigarettes. For him, it While for 18-year-old Michael

Fitzpatrick, who had had a private education and aspirations of going

to university, stealing from shops like Foot Asylum was about

Until political reasoning gives way For me, they have nothing to hang

it on, this is just want and criminality. Of the 203 Manchester

rioters so far charged, more than 80% already have criminal records.

Nationally, that figure is around 75%. The Ministry of Justice says

it's the legacy of a broken penal system. But if the system is broken,

then why are we simply handing out heavier sentences to the rioters?

There is a contradiction, because the solution to the riots seems to

be a prison, because the courts brought in longer sentences. You're

seeming to imply that because prison is not doing its job

properly at the moment, the answer is to stop sending people to prison.

That is not the right solution at all. The solution is to say, we

have got to make the prison system work. But was it right that there

were exemplary sentences handed down for those who took part in

these riots, disrupted the community, attacked police officers,

of course it was right. Because their behaviour in those riots was

completely unacceptable. Ricky Gemmell, who was caught up in the

riots, believes that his 16 weeks sentence for threatening behaviour

was too harsh. It has cost him his job, and in an area with bleak

employment prospects, things do not look good for him. Under normal

circumstances, the sentence would not have been that harsh. I do not

agree that because it was a riot, that we should get harsher

sentences, that's not right. But, for the Chief Constable, tougher

sentences for all crimes related to the riots are essential. I totally

support the longer prison sentences, to say, if you as an individual go

out and shoplift, that's bad, but if you go out in a mob, it is far

more serious, because it threatens society itself. We are a thin blue

line, as police officers. The system will only work if the vast

majority of people observe the law. Footwell hours in August, that Thin

Blue Line was tested like never before. The argument over why the

riots happened will continue. But today, hundreds of culprits remain

at large. If they think they have got away with it, think again. The

public want them catching. As long as the public have got a taste for

it, we have got a taste for it. Next week, on Panorama, would you