Symeon Brown, a 23-year-old youth leader and co-founder of Haringey Young People Empowered, said recent growing hostility towards the police had sparked protests, but condemned the subsequent violence.
"There has been a rising anti-police sentiment among people, partly as a result of some precarious deaths in police custody, which has opened some old wounds in the Tottenham community but also among some young people," he said. "While the shooting of Mark Duggan has triggered this off, the mass looting and arson is nothing more than a thief’s mentality."
Brown said while the riots could not be blamed on the recent cuts to youth services, these had contributed to a wider sense of ill-feeling.
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