London Evening Standard/London


Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg looks at some of the damage caused to local businesses in Tottenham yesterday
Police are hunting mobs of children who joined the riots across London when parts of the city descended into lawlessness for a second night.
Children aged between 10 and 14, said to have been inspired by video game Grand Theft Auto, were seen rampaging through Enfield and Brixton as riots and looting also spread to Dalston and Fulham.
The Met yesterday held crisis talks and hundred of extra officers were brought in from around the country to prevent a third night of clashes.
The violence started over the shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, in Tottenham last Thursday but soon escalated into looting and attacks by anarchists and organised criminal gangs.
Boris Johnson faced calls to cut short his holiday as it emerged that Home Secretary Theresa May is flying back in the wake of the worst violence in the capital for 26 years.
The emergency talks follow the arrest of more than 100 people on Sunday night as rioters left a wave of destruction across the capital.
Shops, vehicles and police were attacked. There was also violence in Islington and at Oxford Circus, while a shop in King’s Road in Chelsea was damaged. Terrified residents in Enfield yesterday told how masked youths, including girls, had left their districts looking like “battlefields” using Twitter and BlackBerry messaging to organise the disorder and outstrip the police response. Scores of police were hurt over the weekend.
In Brixton shocked witnesses told how teenage girls were among the ringleaders of about 200 marauding youths; how shops were set on fire and windows smashed as anarchists looted valuable goods from shops.
In Dalston, a gang of youths broke into Kingsland shopping centre and smashed their way into JD Sports and Foot Locker in search of designer trainers.
And just before 1am three police officers were taken to hospital after being hit by a fast-moving car while trying to make arrests in Chingford Mount after a shop was looted.
The trouble followed the hours of looting and arson that began in Tottenham on Saturday night. Amid growing concern about the Met’s inability to prevent the rioting, May flew back to London yesterday for talks at Scotland Yard over how to quell the disturbances.
The summit came as other key developments yesterday included:
Duggan is believed to have been armed with a replica firearm — it is not known if the gun which was hidden in a sock was capable of firing.
Complaints that the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s failure to issue adequate information about the shooting has fuelled the violence by angering residents and allowing conspiracy theories to flourish.
Renewed questions about the Met’s leadership and its ability to cope with large scale public protests, as well as concerns about the impact of cuts to Scotland Yard’s funding.
The Metropolitan Police yesterday said that more than 160 people have so far been arrested over the rioting.
A spokesman said: “More than 100 arrests were made on Sunday night and the early hours of yesterday morning. That is in addition to 61 arrests on Saturday night.”
The spokesman added that 16 people have been charged so far for a range of offences including burglary and possession of weapons.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the most senior politician currently in the country, was to hold a series of meetings with top police officers and other government ministers to discuss the weekend’s violence.