Thatcher: I confess to be worried about this

On Monday April 6, 1981, 100 plain clothes police officers arrived in Brixton as part of Operation Swamp 81, an initiative attempting to reduce high rates of crime in South London, writes Tom Watling.

In the next five days, they stopped and searched more than 950 people under the ‘SUS’ laws, which allowed the police to stop anyone they suspected might be planning to commit a crime.

At the time, Brixton was heavily populated by West Indian immigrants, a third of the housing in the borough was of a poor standard and 65 per cent of the unemployed were black.

On April 10, a fight broke out between two police officers and a group of young black men.

The local community was infuriated by the mass stop and searches and tensions were high.

The fighting escalated, and at 4.45pm, on April 11, missiles were thrown at a police van after they arrested a young black taxi driver.

The police increased reinforcements, including riot police and dogs, and looting began.

Bricks, bottles and petrol bombs were thrown, setting fire to police and civilian cars, as well as retail and commercial premises and bars.

Ricardo McKenzie aka Ricky Ranking, one of the voices of #Brixton81, remembers the events of Saturday.

He said: “No matter where I went, I couldn’t go anywhere. Police were everywhere. The fighting was everywhere. The fire was everywhere. I tried to go up Brixton Road, to go up Acre Lane to go to my house but I couldn’t go that way. There was pure fighting. To me it was a war.”

On Sunday, April 12, 165 people were arrested for rioting. 122 officers and three civilians were injured and 61 police vehicles were damaged or destroyed, as well as 26 other vehicles.

Non-rioting members of the public attempted to de-escalate tensions and by Sunday night, the largest groups had dispersed.

Across the weekend, more than 7,000 police officers had been involved in the controlling the riots and 282 people had been arrested, most of whom were black.

More than a hundred vehicles were burnt, including 56 police vehicles; with almost 150 buildings damaged and 30 burnt.

There were 82 arrests.

The damage sustained was estimated to be £7.5million.

Following the riots, a public investigation carried out by Lord Scarman explored why the riots had happened.

It concluded that there was “no doubt racial disadvantage was a fact of current British life,” but that “institutional racism” did not exist in London’s Metropolitan police force.

On Monday, April 13, 1981 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dismissed the idea that high unemployment rates and racism caused the riots.

She said: “Nothing, but nothing, justifies what happened.” At one stage, though, she expressed real concerns about official responses to the 1981 Brixton riots, which left 279 policemen and 45 members of the public injured and created £7.5million of damage.

Made public for the first time in 2014 after being released by the National Archives, the files cover the period after the publication of the Lord Scarman led five-month inquiry into the unrest.

A handwritten note by Mrs Thatcher on a summary of the report read: “I’m afraid the report seems highly critical of the police.”

Later, in June 1982, Mrs Thatcher received a briefing telling her of the Home Secretary’s plan to introduce a duty on police to consult the community.

The Home Office note said consultation would have the advantage of “increasing the flow of information between the police and the community which Scarman felt to be essential”.

Mrs Thatcher, later Lady Thatcher, wrote in response: “I confess to being very worried about this.

“It will soon be said that the police cannot prosecute or search without consultation. I cannot see what they are going to be compelled to consult about.”

Her Government later made arrangements for community consultation as part of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.