Kristallnacht

in

Middlesbrough

Garnet Street, Middlesbrough, extensively damaged during riots

Scott Hunter

5 August 2024

The clean up of Middlesbrough’s streets has begun in earnest this morning. But there are a few other matters to be cleared up. One of them relates to the BBC which, on its news bulletins on Sunday evening, described the riot as a ‘town centre protest’, contrasting it with the events in Rotherham where a hotel in a suburb was targeted, with residents still inside.

The problem with referring to ‘town centre’ is that town centres are places where no one lives, and the impression given is that vandals were out targeting commercial premises and public buildings. This was most certainly never the rioters’ intention.

The target was, in fact, the densely-populated streets of Gresham. In Garnet Street, at least twelve of its twenty or so houses had smashed windows. On one side of Atholl Street, almost all of the houses had their windows smashed, and a considerable number of cars were also damaged. Why here? Because this area is Middlesbrough’s melting pot, where there is a concentration of refugees and other migrants. This has been characteristic of this area for decades.

Mid afternoon the police appeared to have the crowds under control. We followed the crowd yesterday as it left Centre Square and headed back towards Linthorpe Road, and watched as groups detached themselves from the main body and headed off along Grange Road and Borough Road towards Union Street.

We followed those who walked along Garnet Street and then headed up towards Princes Road and Aske Street. From overheard conversations, we knew that they were heading for Parliament Road. At this point riot police arrived and kettled the crowd along Clifton Street back towards Linthorpe Road. During that time we saw a taxi that he been damaged at the end of Princes Road, but no other signs of vandalism in Gresham (the only act of vandalism was saw was a window of Central Library being smashed).

Yet, when we spoke to people in Atholl Street this morning, we were told that the damage was carried out around 3pm, at much the same time that we were there.

Mission Impossible

The police are to be commended on their efforts to contain the crowd, but the damage done shows how difficult it was to contain the riot in the warren of streets in Gresham. As they kettled people along Aske Road and Clifton Street, a second group of rioters just came along behind them and smashed the house and car windows without anyone being there to stop them. One local resident we spoke to said that ‘kids’ had made their way to the building site on Union Street, where they armed themselves with bricks and timber battens, which they then used on their rampage around the streets. 

One thing that is important to note here is that the vandals did their work in otherwise deserted streets.  On the other side of Linthorpe Road, in Waterloo Road, a crowd of at least 200 gathered early in the afternoon to defend the Central Mosque, in case it should come under attack. In the event, the rioters did not come near it, nor any of the streets around it. The rioters, keen to damage property, shied away from the prospect of a pitched battle. 

It means that the beer bellies on Linthorpe Road were effectively providing cover for the ‘kids’ who were doing the real damage elsewhere. Whatever damage was done to public and commercial buildings yesterday is vandalism. Attacking innocent people’s homes is terrorism. We hope that the courts will take this into account when they sentence those arrested following yesterday’s disturbances.

Surveying the damage to property in Gresham, and the efforts of hundreds of volunteers to clean up, we think that what is needed in the coming days is to restore the faith of people in Gresham that they live in a safe place. It would help if they did not have to bear the cost of repair. We think that there is a need for a fund to be set up to assist people whose property has been damaged.

Finally, the organisers of the event stated that there would be a collection for the victims of the attack in Southport last week. It would be interesting to know if that money has been delivered.