Mob violence spreads north

Attacks were reported in Manchester, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich, while Yorkshire police were among 16,000 officers battling to contain a fourth night of trouble in the capital.

Shops were set on fire in Manchester city centre and neighbouring Salford, where a supermarket was reportedly looted.

Scores of youths were involved in troubled in Birmingham for the second night running and forces elsewhere in the country were on high alert, putting extra officers on duty.

Courts and prisons were being kept open around the clock to deal with people charged over the riots.

It emerged yesterday that the whose killing by police sparked the first night of riots in London on Saturday, Mark Duggan, 29, had not opened fire on officers before he was shot in the chest.

Efforts to restore control were stepped up after Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his holiday and demanded that the number of officers on duty in London be more than doubled from 6,000 to 16,000.

All Metropolitan Police leave was cancelled and forces across the country, including North Yorkshire and Humberside, sent officers to swell the ranks.

West Yorkshire Police were not asked to help, but there was a heavy police presence in some parts of the force area, including Chapeltown, Leeds, where two shootings have been reported in the last week, and in Leeds city centre for the football match between Leeds United and Bradford City.

By 7pm last night the Metropolitan Police in London had made 563 arrests over the three nights of rioting and charged 105 people with offences ranging from burglary to possessing offensive weapons.

Mr Cameron pledged to speed up court procedures to deal with the “many more” arrests expected as police scour hundreds of hours of closed circuit TV for evidence about those responsible.

“People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain’s streets and to make them safe for the law-abiding,” the Prime Minister added.

But London Mayor Boris Johnson and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg were heckled by angry residents as they visited scenes resembling war zones in the capital and Birmingham.

Shops across London began closing from lunchtime yesterday after police warnings and rapidly spreading rumours of further mob violence on social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Retailers also shut up early in Manchester yesterday but trouble broke out in nearby Salford where youths fought running battles with police.

In Manchester city centre, rioters wearing masks and hoods set fire to a Miss Selfridge shop on Market Street and broke into a number of others including branches of Sainsbury’s and Tesco Express. Hundreds of youths were involved and at one point tried to storm the Arndale shopping centre.

West Midlands Police said they were dealing with a “large group” of people in Birmingham city centre although violence was not as serious as on Monday night.

A number of people across the country were arrested on suspicion of inciting trouble via social networking sites.

North Yorkshire’s temporary Deputy Chief Constable Tim Madgwick confirmed that his force was monitoring social media closely, and administrators of the Sheffield Forum website were forced to remove posts after they found visitors were using it to discuss “either the furthering of rioting and looting behaviour in Sheffield, or the vigilantism against anybody rioting or looting”.

Scotland Yard described the riots on Monday night as the worst it had seen “in current memory” for “unacceptable levels of widespread looting, fires and disorder”. Officers confirmed plastic bullets have been considered as a tactic to bring the rioting under control.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh said the violence had stretched resources “to an extent I have never seen before”.

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