One man was arrested on suspicion of arson on Wednesday afternoon after a Miss Selfridges clothes store was set alight on Tuesday night. Manchester, in the northwest of England, is a multicultural hub where wealthy neighbourhoods sit alongside pockets of deprivation.
Unemployment in the parliamentary constituency of Manchester Central is almost double the national average. Standing beside looted stores in St. There is going to be a doubling of police numbers on the streets tonight. But London - which had borne the brunt of previous violence - was largely quiet after thousands of extra police were ordered onto the streets. In Manchester, police were driven back by gangs of hundreds of youths who covered their faces with scarves and ski masks.
Gangs smashed into shoe shops, electronics stores and clothes shops and set fire to a girls' clothing store in the city centre. Two raiders smashed the glass entrance of the Arndale shopping centre, the city's main central shopping mall, opening the way for around youths to pour into a shop before rushing out carrying clothing and shoes. Gangs taunted the police, hurling stones and missiles at shop windows and jeering at riot police, who chased them in vans.
Glen Barkworth, general manager of the Arndale, told BBC television: "All of a sudden it turned in a second at pm tonight.
I've witnessed youths picking up gratings, throwing them through the doors of Footasylum where 50 youths cascaded into the unit, looting. We're talking about half a dozen groups doing damage all over the centre. One Manchester resident told the BBC that looting had gone on "for hours" in the city after riot police were "driven back" by youths.
Earlier, hundreds were involved in a stand-off with riot police a few miles away at a shopping centre in nearby Salford, where looting also broke out. Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney, from Greater Manchester Police, said youths had gathering seeming "intent on committing disorder" and urged people to stay away from the city centre. Central Manchester and Salford saw serious looting and disorder as gangs waged running battles with police, ransacking dozens of shops.
Similar, if less widespread, trouble flared in Birmingham and elsewhere in the West Midlands. The most serious disorder came in Manchester. Groups of young people consistently evaded police attempts to stop them from the late afternoon onwards, breaking into a series of upmarket shops and setting a branch of the Miss Selfridge clothing chain ablaze.
As evening fell, up to youths raided an off-licence and other shops in the main shopping precinct of Salford, a couple of miles to the west. The violence ebbed in Manchester city centre around midnight and police regained control.
One of the few remaining signs of trouble was a gang of masked youths looting a branch of Jessops on the corner of Albert Square, beside Manchester town hall.
The gang had posted a lookout and scattered as a police van swept past with blue lights flashing, then went back into the store a moment later.
A woman who walked past shouted, "Disgraceful" at the gang. There has been no spark. This has been senseless on a scale I have never witnessed before in my career. By midnight police had made 47 arrests in Manchester and Salford. One suspected looter turned himself in after seeing his picture on Facebook, police said. Shewan said Manchester and Salford had been shamed by the criminals committing "wanton acts of violence and criminality".
At the same time in Manchester city centre, a hooded, masked crowd was making its way down the upmarket New Cathedral Street, home to Selfridges and Harvey Nichols. The Ugg shop was smashed. The riots had begun. By 8pm in both cities, initial pitch battles between police and hundreds of rioters — with police suffering what they called "unprecedented levels of violence and criminality"— had stopped, giving way to apparently unhindered looting.
About people gathered around Salford Precinct's Lidl as shelves were cleared while people stood and took pictures. Miss Selfridge was set on fire in Manchester's Market Street. So far, there have been about riot-related arrests.
About of those arrested have been charged. GMP are still searching for hundreds more suspects. About 1, police officers were deployed throughout the two cities; 60 officers were injured. Of the who have appeared in the courts in Manchester and Salford during the riots, more than half were under Only 19 were over 40, and just over one in 10 were female.
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