Official Documentary: The Battle For Brixton April 1981

Official Documentary: The Battle For Brixton April 1981

The rioting which began in Brixton, in the south London borough of Lambeth, in April 1981 shocked the nation.

For three days, rioters - predominately young, black men - fought police, attacked buildings and set fire to vehicles.

More than 300 people were injured and the damage caused came to an estimated value of £7.5m.

What was most shocking to many people was the unexpectedness of events. On the surface it seemed that black people were well-integrated into the fabric of UK society.

Many were second generation, born to parents who had come to Britain from the Caribbean in the late 1940s and 1950s to help "the motherland" with post-war rebuilding.

And there were high-profile success stories among Britain's black community.

Trevor McDonald had been presenting the news on television since 1973, Lenny Henry was a popular comedian having won a TV talent show aged 17 in 1975 and Daley Thompson had won decathlon gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.


But below the surface tensions had been building up and on 11 April 1981 they boiled over in Brixton, an area where 25% of residents were from an ethnic minority group.

The days of full employment were long gone and in Brixton around half of young black men had no job.

Injured policeman is bandaged
More than 100 officers were injured during the clashes
An amended Race Relations Act had become law in 1976 but police forces were granted an exemption from its conditions.

Many young black men believed officers discriminated against them, particularly by use of the 'Sus' law under which anybody could be stopped and searched if officers merely suspected they might be planning to carry out a crime.

In early April, Operation Swamp - an attempt to cut street crime in Brixton which used the Sus law to stop more than 1,000 people in six days - heightened tensions.

Unsubstantiated rumours of police brutality against a black man later led an angry crowd gathering to confront officers on the evening of 10 April for a few hours before the disturbances were contained.

But an arrest the following night sparked off the rioting in earnest.

But although its immediate causes were specific to Brixton, the rioting was perhaps a sign of the times.

The mixture of high unemployment, deprivation, racial tensions and poor relations with police were not unique to Brixton.

By the time Lord Scarman's report on the events in Brixton was published in November 1981, similar disturbances had taken place in a raft of other English cities, most notably Liverpool and Manchester.

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