Rioters Fuelling Prison Tensions, Says Inspector

The influx of rioters into jails has led to violent clashes between inmates as gangs attempt to recruit new members behind bars, the Chief Inspector of Prisons said yesterday.











British police officers charge rioters, during riots in Hackney, east London, Monday Aug. 8, 2011.

Nick Hardwick said the surge of young troublemakers into custody had fuelled tensions in jails and left more young offenders on suicide watch.

He said the increase threatened to undo recent improvements in prison conditions and protested over the Government's failure to embark on its promised "rehabilitation revolution".

Mr Hardwick said the stream of new arrivals had caused "stresses and strains" in the prison system which had spilled over into violence.

A gymnasium at Feltham Young Offenders Institution in west London had been "trashed" and offenders climbed on to the roof, while inmates at Brixton prison refused to return to their cells and threw objects at staff.

He said some of the gang rivalries in the outside world had been transferred to prisons, with some groups recruiting new members.

"There have been some quite serious incidents of groups fighting, fights between individuals and gangs reconfiguring," he said. "Some young people who previously did not have gang affiliation have joined for self-protection. New gangs have also been established."

After being locked up, members of rival "postcode gangs" from London had buried their differences to form city-wide groupings when they were moved to other parts of the country, he said.

The prison population in England and Wales stands at a record high of more than 86,800 – a rise of 900 since before the wave of riots in London and other major cities.

Nearly 200 looters have already been jailed and hundreds more have been remanded in custody awaiting trial.

Mr Hardwick also disclosed that a "significant number" of rioters jailed for the first time, as well as inmates moved to new prisons, were considered to be at risk of suicide and self-harm.

Producing his first annual report since succeeding Dame Anne Owers as Chief Inspector, he said many would have to sit out their sentences without any constructive activity or attempt to correct their behaviour.

They would, he said, have "too much access to drugs and negative peer pressure and too little access to work."

May Warned That Rioters Could Target 2012 Games

Gangs involved in last month's riots could attempt to disrupt the 2012 London Olympics, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, was told yesterday.











Fears over attempts to disrupt the Games have been privately relayed by a former police officer to the Commons home affairs select committee, which is examining the worse wave of unrest to hit England for 30 years.

MPs on the committee confronted her with the warning from a recently retired officer who served on Operation Trident, the Met's operation against gun crime in the black community. Ms May, appearing before the committee, acknowledged the danger that the gangs could use the Olympics as a catalyst for looting and violence.

She said the team planning Olympic security was examining the riots to see if there were implications for the safe staging of the Games. David Cameron originally blamed gangs for much of the trouble and said he was seeking advice from Bill Bratton, the US police chief, on tackling the problem.

However, Ms May accepted the proportion of gang members involved in the unrest was "not as high as people first thought". But she added: "There is some evidence that obviously there was some gang activity taking place in terms of encouraging people to take part in these events and as we saw, some of that encouragement was being propagated on social media."

She announced she was staging an international conference next month to share ideas for the best way of tackling gang culture. Ms May refused to be drawn on the causes of the sudden outbreak of rioting.

Brian Paddick Picked By Liberal Democrats For London Mayoral Race

2012 race will be rematch between Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and former Met deputy assistant commissioner.












Brian Paddick is once again the Liberal Democrat candidate for mayor of London, pitted against Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone.

London's mayoral election next year will be a rematch between Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick, after the former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner was selected as the Liberal Democrats' candidate for the second time.

Paddick, who came third in the 2008 mayoral election when Johnson ousted Livingstone after two terms, was declared the winner after a four-horse race in which the former MP Lembit Opik was eliminated in the first round.

Opik lost the safe Lib Dem seat of Montgomeryshire in the 2010 general election. On Friday, in an election run on the single transferrable vote, he secured just 252 votes, coming fourth behind London councillor Brian Haley, with 316.

Paddick narrowly won on second preference votes (1,567), with Mike Tuffrey, a member of the London assembly, close behind on 1,476. About 6,000 London party members were eligible to vote.

Paddick, who had said he was undecided about standing when he put in his nomination papers in June, has pledged to fight for a "fair deal" for Londoners, to protect local community policing and to hold down bus fares.

He thanked Liberal Democrat members "who placed their trust and confidence in me to be their candidate for mayor of London – I won't let you down".

Opik, who had previously claimed that "forces within the party" were trying to prevent him standing, conceded defeat before the final result was announced. He told the Evening Standard: "I stood because I felt the Lib Dems desperately need to reach out beyond their traditional voters. Boris and Ken are celebrity politicians. I fear the party doesn't grasp the implication of this." He was not quitting. "I'll be back," he said.

Some in the party are resigned to next year's election being a Johnson-Livingstone rematch, and see the mayoral election as a way of boosting the party's profile for the London assembly elections taking place at the same time. Currently it holds just three seats out of 25.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister, said Paddick provided Londoners with a "real, credible alternative" to Johnson and Livingstone.

"Brian's experience is exactly what London needs right now. Whether dealing with the aftermath of the riots or phone hacking and corruption in the Metropolitan police, Brian has shown in recent weeks that he has the authority and leadership London needs."The phone hacking scandal that rocked News International, the Metropolitan police and the political establishment is likely to surface in the 2012 contest. Paddick, whose phone was hacked by the now defunct News of the World, is among a group of public figures who have sought permission for a judicial review of the Met's handling of the phone hacking scandal.

Johnson, the incumbent mayor who declared his intention to seek a second term a year ago, came under fire over the summer for having dismissed reports that News of the World's use of phone hacking was more widespread than first thought as "codswallop" – a claim that turned out to be wide of the mark.

Livingstone, who was the first to declare his intention to stand again, was mayor when the original police investigation was conducted in 2006.

Paddick, who retired from the police in 2007 after 30 years of service, told the Evening Standard on Friday that reformed gang members should go into school to warn children of the dangers of getting involved in violent crime, after the recent riots in the capital raised fears about violent young people.

England Riots: David Cameron Returns To Rhetoric Of 'Broken Society'

Prime Minister David Cameron announces his "social fightback" with a series of cliches he has been working on for years.



Speaking at a youth centre in Witney, his Oxfordshire constituency, the Prime Minister repeatly referred to "social fightback" and mending Britain's "broken society" as he struggled to get a hold on one of the biggest crises of his premiership.

"The broken society is back at the top of my political agenda," the Prime Minister said in the speech in which he outlined measures to prevent a repeat of the country's worst riots in decades.

The Government is already under fire for its determination to press ahead with police budget cuts and its decision to recruit US ''Supercop'' William Bratton as an adviser on tackling gang culture in the UK.

In an escalating war of words with the police, one chief constable warned that David Cameron risks losing the support of the police. Three other police chiefs have also openly questioned the Prime Minister’s approach to law and order.