‘It felt like we were under siege’: When riots set Brixton ablaze

On April 11, 1981, racial tensions erupted onto the streets of Brixton as the black community rose up against police discrimination and mass unemployment.

For three days rioters fought with police, hurling petrol bombs, setting fire to cars and schools and looting shops.

Michael Groce was 18 when the Brixton Riots broke out. He would later retell the tale of the violence in his poem, Bottles and Bombs, Guns and Bricks.

Looking back, now aged 62, he said: “I was coming through Brixton high street with my girlfriend in the middle of the riot.

“I lost her for a moment and when I looked up the sky was cloudy with bottles and bricks raining down.”

The riots were sparked by rumours of police brutality against a black man on April 10, 1981, resulting in an angry crowd confronting police in Railton Road and Atlantic Road in central Brixton.

The protest was contained in a matter of hours, but an arrest the following night triggered clashes between the community and police which quickly spiralled out of control.

Schools were burnt, cars overturned and firefighters diverted to avoid reported attacks.

A charge by about 200 officers with riot shields and batons down Atlantic Road misfired when they were forced to retreat under a hail of missiles.

Mr Groce said: “The community had put up with a lot, we’d had raids and the SUS law but this was the first time everything had exploded.

“It was a flash point of what was already going on for a long period of time.”

The infamous “sus law”, one of the worst manifestations of British racism in modern history, gave cops the right to arrest people suspected of “intent to commit an offence”.

But police began to apply the law disproportionately towards young Black people.

Mr Groce said: “It was used a lot in Brixton. It felt like we were under siege, there was a police car parked on every road.

“You had the bobby on the beat who everyone knew, you could get on with them, but then you had the ones who wanted to frighten you.

“Once you left Brixton there were no-go zones where you knew you would get stopped because they didn’t want us in those areas.

“I needed to know how I was going to get home safe. That’s how we were living.”

Two months before the riots broke out, Lambeth council published a report about the state of police and community relations in Brixton. It said that many black people believed they were targeted by the police purely on racial lines.

Having grown up in the care system, Mr Groce spent much of his young life in and out of police stations and court rooms with stints in prison for theft and robbery.

He was first arrested aged seven for shoplifting.

Mr Groce said: “I was in and out of school, trying to make money where I could but it was hard.

“Sometimes I’d go out on my lunch break with the big lads and they’d get me to nick things from the market.

“I understood that Brixton wasn’t just a Caribbean area, it was also an area where you would come if you got into trouble.

“So I understand both sides. I knew why the police were there.”

During three days of rioting, nearly 300 police officers and 65 civilians were injured.

Mr Groce said: “At the time I wasn’t very politically aware.

“The riots were definitely taken advantage of by some people who just wanted to loot, but it also gave people a voice, especially black business owners.

“Looking back, I knew it was going to get worse.”

After Lord Scarman led an inquiry into the riot, the government passed the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act, which regulated stop and search.

In 1985, the Independent Police Complaints Authority was set up.

That same year, Mr Groce would find himself at the centre of another battle which took hold of Brixton after his mother Dorothy “Cherry” Groce, was mistakenly shot by police officers, leaving her paralysed.

Pictured top: Police battle with rioters during the Brixton riot of 1981 (Picture: PA Images)