How a ranting mob turned a summer’s evening to mayhem
THE inner-city suburb of Harehills is a noisy, dusty, febrile sort of place at the best of times.
But few familiar with the area could have predicted how an ordinary summer’s evening would boil over into a terrifying night of burning chaos on Thursday.
Or how a police call to a routine child protection visit could spark several hours of mass rioting and disorder.
A mob of locals, apparently angry that several children from a Roma family were being taken into care by the local authority, gathered and started chanting at police, before flipping over one of their vehicles nearby.
The disorder then spread and officers mobilised to quell the tension were pelted with bricks and bottles, rubbish bins set alight and a doubledecker bus set on fire by the mob. As is now common in the modern age of social media, the riot was live-streamed, minute by minute, on the internet, with footage of thick plumes of acrid black smoke in the skies from the burning vehicle, screaming police sirens and chanting from the angry crowds, posted directly from the scene.
The rioters were people of all ages and ethnicities and included a young boy who threw rocks at a police van, a man using a children’s scooter to smash up a police car and another who watched the violence unfold with a baby in his arms.
West Yorkshire police said it was ‘evident’ their officers were the ‘sole target’ of the rioters, so before the sun set they withdrew from the scene. But fire chiefs also said the situation was too dangerous for their crews to attend and last night questions were being asked about their decision to withdraw, leaving terrified residents to deal with the situation themselves.
Locals used their garden hoses to fill wheelie-bins with water and tried to put out the flames, and eventually local councillors and community leaders, who pleaded for restraint, managed to calm the situation, before firefighters moved in around midnight.
Councillor Mothin Ali, who represents Gipton and Harehills, which is in the 3 per cent of most deprived areas in the country, described the scenes as ‘absolute mayhem’. He said he understood officers were trying not to ‘antagonise’ the crowds but questioned their decision to pull out.
Police ‘didn’t have the numbers and didn’t have the support,’ he said.
‘The idea was not to try to antagonise things, to let things fizzle out. In hindsight we could criticise that but at the time when they’re making the decision, it’s tough.
‘I don’t know who was in charge but I’d like to speak to them.’
Others were not so conciliatory. ‘The police don’t care about our area,’ one man said. ‘They’ve just left, they’ll let us deal with it.’
Mr Ali said the mob included people who were ‘legitimately angry’ but others were ‘out to cause trouble’.
‘We were trying to shelter the police, act as human shields because they were there without helmets, without shields, being pelted with bricks and bottles, so we were trying to calm people down and act as a protective
barrier,’ he added. ‘Legitimate anger is appropriate but attacking a bus with innocent people on it is not.’
Trouble first flared around 5pm when children from a Roma family were forcibly taken into care.
Footage posted online showed a police officer removing a teenage girl in handcuffs and grappling with a young boy, who could be seen kicking and crying, as he was taken from the house into a police van.
Other videos showed an angry mob outside the family’s home chanting in Romanian and egging on crowds to flip over a police car, which was rolled on to its side with its blue lights flashing and sirens blaring.
The crowd then moved and started a bonfire on the junction of Harehills Lane and Crompton Street. Rubbish, mattresses and even a fridge was thrown on to the burning pyre, prompting hundreds more to come out of their homes to watch.
But when police in riot vans turned up to try to disperse the crowds the mood turned ugly, with yobs pelting officers with rocks and other missiles.
Around 10pm a double-decker bus was set alight in the middle of nearby Foundry Approach, but by then the police were nowhere to be seen.
One local said: ‘It started with a fire near the traffic lights made out of mattresses, a fridge, wheelie bins. The police arrived in vans and surrounded it but then they started to try to set fire to them so they all got back in and took off.
‘The most shocking was when they set fire to the bus. It started with them attacking it with bricks. Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon.
‘Social media was escalating it too with everyone making TikTok videos. They know the police are shorthanded. They were throwing bins on the bus fire.’
There was ‘big black smoke coming from the main road’ and rioters ‘pulling bins from people’s businesses or houses and putting them into the middle of the road full of rubbish and setting it on fire,’ she added.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer condemned the ‘shocking and disgraceful’ disorder. And Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the scenes of violence as ‘audacious criminality’.
Two weeks into her new role, Ms Cooper met with local police and said that those responsible for the outburst should feel the ‘full force of the law’. The mayor of Leeds, Tracy Brabin, said: ‘Such criminal behaviour will not be tolerated.’
West Yorkshire Police last night confirmed five arrests had been made and more were expected over the coming days.
Police said they were using ‘innovative’ ways of identifying those responsible, prompting speculation that new techniques, such as facial recognition, were being deployed.
Assistant Chief Constable Pat Twiggs said officers came under attack following a routine call out from social workers ‘being met with hostility when dealing with a child protection matter.’
He said riot police were deployed but when they ‘came under a barrage of bricks and missiles… a decision was taken to withdraw these officers temporarily as it was evident (they) were their sole target.’
Police were reviewing CCTV and social media footage and images to identify the perpetrators, she added.
Yesterday the burnt-out shell of the bus was removed but a large police presence in the area remained, including officers on horseback. Large numbers of officers were expected in the area last night as community leaders called for calm.
And the Roma father also called for peace. He said: ‘We don’t want any retribution. We are good people.’
Thursday’s rioting – the third time in just over two decades that the ethnically diverse Leeds suburb has been blighted by lawlessness – came as members of the Roma community complained about being ‘persecuted’ by police.
Harehills is home to around 5,000 Roma, who are attracted to the deprived neighbourhood by its spacious three-storey terraces and low house prices.
But the indefensible attack on police and social workers trying to protect children from a Roma family over welfare concerns appears to have ignited underlying allegations of racism and persecution at the hands of the authorities.
One community leader told the Mail: ‘We are persecuted at home and now here. The police should not have taken the children away, it is upsetting for the parents and family and children.’
Indeed research by Leeds City Council aimed at boosting integration of Roma families tells of their ‘fierce pride’ – and, tellingly given Thursday night’s shocking events, how ‘a problem for one member of the community, was seen as a problem for all’.
It also highlighted how Roma children were disproportionately more likely to be taken into care, potentially because – it argues – families’ inability to speak English means they struggle to gain support.
Harehills has long been one of the most ethnically diverse areas of Leeds.
At the last Census in 2021, 38 per cent of residents of Harehills and neighbouring Gipton described themselves as being from Asian backgrounds, 36 per white and 17 per cent black.
It has also been ranked as the most deprived neighbourhood in the West Yorkshire city with among the highest levels of unemployment, crime and poor health.
At least twice before, violence and illfeeling towards police has spilled out into street violence. In 2001, hundreds of men went on the rampage in Harehills following the wrongful arrest of an Asian man.
As with last night’s violence, the trigger led to thugs from all backgrounds assembling and targeting police.
‘Social media was escalating it too with everyone making TikTok videos’