Manchester: Inside the riots
Panorama's Jeremy Vine went behind the lines with Manchester's police and into the interview rooms with the rioters to tell the inside story of one of the cities most affected by the August riots.
For the first time, a police force allowed access to its footage from this summer's running battles - this time, on the streets of Manchester and Salford.
The programme reveals how in Salford there was more to the rioting than opportunistic looting.
And it follows the police investigation as they sought to identify and arrest some 700 rioters caught on camera at 300 separate crime scenes.
We welcome your views on tonight's programme. Please use this forum to tell us what you think.
Comment number 1.
At 14th Nov 2011, AC wrote:Why be so melodramatic Jeremy? "The thin blue line was tested like never before." Upon what do you base that judgement? Was it worse than Broadwater Farm? Was it worse than the miner's strikes? How do you know? Your statement was as inaccurate as those uttered by most MPs. You can do much better.
The thin blue line was totally ineffective for the scale of what it had to deal with; the response by police senior management was clearly incompetent.
In Manchester, Mr Fahey's senior team should have planned for sufficient resources to be on standby as soon as they saw the scale of the riots in London. That they didn't showed their incompetence.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 15th Nov 2011, Martin johns wrote:The programme perpetuates the belief that the majority of those involved in the riots were those with criminal records.
After the disturbances the police went for their known culprits. Those with criminal records. Not surprisingly many of these were indeed involved in looting and had their spoils at home. However, many others unknown to the police may not have been brought to account. Without a more accurate picture of who was involved it’s going to be hard to explore the reasons behind what went on.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)