DISORDER IN WANDSWORTH Report of the Independent Review Neil Kinghan Page 1 of 80 Disorder in Wandsworth Report of the independent review Contents: Introduction……………………………………………………….. Page 3 Section 1 - What happened on 7, 8 and 9 August?…………...Page 5 Section 2 - What local factors contributed to the disorder?..... Page 18 Section 3 - The responses of the Police and the Fire and Rescue service to the disorder……………........... Page 22 Section 4 - The response of Wandsworth Council to the disorder…............................................................. Page 28 Section 5 - What was the impact on local businesses and local residents…….………………………… ……... Page 34 Section 6 - Recommendations to Wandsworth Council and others for action and further examination………. Page 36 Annexes……………………………………………………........... 1. Terms of Reference…………………………………… Page 41 2. List of Interviewees…………………………………….Page 42 3. Notes of Public Meetings…………………………….. Page 44 4. Social and Economic Statistics for Wandsworth…... Page 70 Executive Summary………………………………………........... Page 76 I would particularly like to thank the following for their support during this review: Metropolitan Police: Chief Superintendent David Musker Superintendent Gerry Campbell Superintendent Dawn Morris Wandsworth Council: Paul Martin, Chief Executive Stewart Low, Community Safety Sean Dunkling and Virginia Wall, Young People & Learning Ian Stewart and Mark Howell, Housing Department for their time and support. Patrick Watson, Support & Democratic Services Frankie Belloli Simon Vernon Thayyiba Shaah for organising and recording the public meetings. And most of all: I am very grateful for the brilliant support I have had from John Boyle, from the Council’s Policy Unit and Antonia De Lima from the Chief Executive’s office who organised and recorded my meetings, and gave me first class advice in the course of the review. Page 2 of 80 Introduction 1. Wandsworth is known to be a peaceful place. It is the safest Inner London Borough judged by the rate of crime per head of the population, and has been since 2003/04. It has areas of deprivation and vivid contrasts of wealth and poverty and a small number of housing estates with gangs and drug-related crime. But these problems are not on the scale of many other urban areas. Clapham Junction attracts visitors from other parts of London, for its shops, its bars and restaurants, not as a meeting place for those intent on violence. 2. Yet, on 8 August 2011, Clapham Junction was the scene of some of the worst of the disorder that broke out across London and in other cities that night. Across Wandsworth as a whole, 109 shops and businesses were attacked on 7 and 8 August. Many windows were broken; large numbers of televisions, other electronic goods, mobile phones, pairs of shoes, trainers and other sports goods were stolen. 25 businesses were seriously damaged and one shop was gutted by fire. 3. Fortunately, no-one was seriously hurt, but shop owners, restaurant and bar staff, local residents and passersby were very scared. Television and CCTV pictures show clearly how frightening the scenes of disorder were. 153 people have so far been arrested and 71 have been charged for alleged participation in the disorder; the police estimate that 300 more may have been involved in the disorder. 4. How did the disorder start? What happened on 7 and 8 August, and in the aftermath on 9 August? Why did it happen in Clapham Junction? Were there local factors which help explain the events of 8 August? How well did the police and other emergency services cope? What was the response of Wandsworth Council? What has been the impact on local businesses and local residents? 5. These are the questions which Wandsworth Council asked me to examine and which this report of my review will seek to answer. The terms of reference for the review are at annex 1. The Council has paid for the review but I am independent of them. I will offer recommendations to the Council and to the police which will, I hope, enable them to learn the lessons of the events of 7, 8 and 9 August and to take action that will reduce the risk of such events happening again. 6. My review has been a rapid exercise, launched on 2 September and concluding with this report on 29 September. The Council’s view, with which I agree, was that it was important to carry out a swift review from which lessons could be quickly drawn and action taken. I have not sought to conduct a fundamental analysis of the social and economic issues that may have contributed to the disorder in London and other cities, nor in-depth research on the young people involved. I hope that the Victims and Communities Panel which Darra Singh is leading and the research by the National Centre for Social Research will address those issues. I was asked to focus specifically on Wandsworth and the events there, because Wandsworth Council saw it as Page 3 of 80 its responsibility to examine the events in its area, to learn from them and to assess what action it would take. 7. I have had the fullest co-operation from the members and officers of Wandsworth Council, in carrying out this review. They have dealt with my questions and those which others have raised in my presence in an open and transparent way. So have the senior officers in the local Police, whose co- operation has been essential to the conduct of the review and who have taken part in the public meetings I have held. 8. I have made it a priority in conducting this review to give all those affected by the disorder the opportunity to express their views. To this end, I have held interviews with 61 people on a personal basis, including local residents, shop- owners and managers and other business people, the local MPs and GLA member, Wandsworth councillors, council officers, the police and the fire and rescue service. The names of all those I have talked to in these personal meetings is at Annex 2. 9. I have met the Battersea Residents Panel, two groups of young people, in Tooting and Battersea, and a group of Council youth workers. I held three public meetings, in Battersea, Tooting and Wandsworth, attended by 180 people in total, each of which gave rise to lively and informative discussions. Notes of those public meetings are at Annex 3. I attended a special Council meeting which Wandsworth Council held to discuss the disorder and its aftermath. I have also received 35 responses to my invitation for written comments. I am very grateful to all those who contributed for their willingness to help and for their generosity with their time. 10. All these contributions have informed this report and made it possible to produce it so quickly. But, this is an independent report, for which I take responsibility, as I do for the assessments in the report and the recommendations I have made. Page 4 of 80 Section 1 What happened on 7, 8 and 9 August? 1.1. I set out below a timeline for the events of 8 August in Clapham Junction and other parts of Wandsworth. Many of those I spoke to in the course of my review have memories of the events of that day which differ from one another and at some points from the timeline below, on some points substantially. That is inevitable on an occasion such as this when the events themselves are so confusing and difficult to deal with. The timeline here is drawn primarily from the CCTV footage which Wandsworth Council recorded and from the police record of events. It offers the best timetable of events that I have been able to put together. 1.2. The timeline begins with the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham on 4 August and the disturbances that followed his death in the Tottenham area on 6 August. Those events did not cause the disturbances that broke out in other parts of London, including the Tooting area of Wandsworth on 7 August. Nor were they directly related to the disorder in Clapham Junction, Balham and Putney on 8 August. But they were part of the chain of events that led to disturbances in Wandsworth, as I shall discuss in the next section of this report. 1.3. It was on Tooting High Street on the evening of 7 August that trouble first occurred in Wandsworth. Eight shops were attacked and a group of 30 to 40 young people forced entry to an amusement arcade. Given the disturbances across London, local residents and businesspeople were understandably worried and the attacks were serious for those affected. They were not repeated on 8 August but they caused much anxiety in Tooting on that day. It is likely that they would have received more attention if they had not been followed by the events of 8 August elsewhere. 1.4. In Balham, a total of eight shops, mainly on Balham High Street, were attacked on the evening of 8 August. Mobile phones and accessories, DVDs, cigarettes and other goods were stolen. An attempt was made to storm a wine bar and the manager attacked. Businesses in Hildreth Street had heard that they might be attacked too, and two shops there had their windows broken, but the owners came together to fend off further trouble. There are also accounts of groups of hooded young men in the area. As in Tooting, the previous night, the incidents were serious for those affected, though limited. They too would have attracted more attention but for the disorder in Clapham Junction. 1.5. In Putney, two mobile phone shops were attacked on the evening of 8 August.