Surprising image of looters emerges

FROM an organic chef and an opera house steward to a university student, a surprising picture has emerged of some of the alleged troublemakers behind Britain’s worst riots for decades.

While many involved seemed to fit a picture of youngsters from broken families marginalised by society, the first court appearances of some of the more than 1,000 people arrested suggested a broader cross-section took part.

In London alone, a total of 770 people have been arrested and at least 105 have been charged. Reports said at least 40 appeared in court on Tuesday as authorities seek to fast-track suspects to clear the backlog.

Fitzroy Thomas, 43, an organic chef, was accused with his brother Ronald, 47, of smashing up a branch of the Nando’s restaurant chain in Clapham.

The pair pleaded not guilty in a London magistrates court and were remanded in custody.

Nan Asante, 19, who recently started work as a steward at an outdoor opera venue in the upmarket London district of Holland Park, reportedly pleaded not guilty to looting a supermarket in the capital.

The involvement of such people in the riots will only deepen the debate over who and what was behind the violence.

Many commentators saw an element of opportunism — as police lost control of the streets to hooded gangs, others helped themselves from shops after their windows were smashed.

But gangs of hooded youths from deprived areas were undoubtedly some of the main participants in the trouble, leading some to conclude that society’s failure to integrate poor communities was a long-term cause of the riots.

Some, however, rejected arguments that social conditions played a role and simply demanded a swift crackdown on the perpetrators.

“This unrest isn’t about ‘wider social issues’ or poverty,” wrote youth and community worker Shaun Bailey, a former parliamentary candidate for the Conservative party, in the Sun.

“It is about robbery. And people’s businesses, homes and livelihoods are being destroyed in the process.”