Reporting from the front line of the Middlesbrough riots

Kris Jepson reports on how the Middlesbrough riots unfolded

'Peaceful Protest'

The day started quietly in Middlesbrough. An eerie, subdued atmosphere in the air of the town just after midday, but as the minutes ticked on, you started to feel tension rising in the air.

As it approached 2pm on Sunday (4 August) - the start of what had been dubbed a “peaceful protest” on social media during the week - shopkeepers rolled down the shutters, padlocked their doors and got out.

Looking around Linthorpe Road, the main high street in Middlesbrough, which leads to the Cenotaph on the edge of Albert Park, where the protestors were meeting, we saw many potential hazards.

Bricks lay beside the road, street furniture, pub tables and chairs, bins, all easily accessible. Even a ditch which was cordoned off by cones for roadworks was left unguarded.

At the Cenotaph it was a slow build up of people. One man holding up a banner saying “Not Far Right”. There were many of the 300 or so who attended the “peaceful protest” who weren’t interested in violence or rioting, nor were they members of the far right.

One woman, close to us, said “the police need to get rid of them” when she saw a group of around 20 white masked youths and men appear at the monument to the fallen. She explained: “They give us all a bad name. They don’t represent us."

She told me she was “angry”. Angry about the three girls who died in Southport on Monday last week.

She said she was angry at immigration which she claimed was out of control, But, she said, the Far Right elements, who mask up at these events, do not represent her or anyone that wants “peaceful protest”.

The Riot

It wasn’t long before those elements started to riot. As they marched down Linthorpe Road, they stopped to abuse a black man and throw glass bottles at him.

A little further down the road, it was flash grenades being thrown and bricks. As they entered the town centre, near the Cleveland Shopping Centre, the crowd, now loud and turning more angry, squared up to riot police who held them back with shields.

There was a constant hum of a police helicopter and the buzz of a police drone above us, observing the tension from the sky.

Masked white youths tried to create roadblocks and as clashes began with the police, groups splintered off in different directions. It was chaos.

We followed groups towards the town hall, where we witnessed them smashing up windows and doors of council buildings, the law courts, parked cars and even MIMA - Middlesbrough’s contemporary art gallery. Nothing was spared.

As we entered an estate close to the university's halls of residence, we found riot police with shields and helmets lining a junction.

The aim, seemingly, to protect the Jamia Masjid Al-Madina Mosque on Waterloo Road.

Stones were thrown by a handful of the masked youths, but they soon got bored and fled. We followed them.

As we went past the student campus, where I studied 20 years ago, we found the Students' Union smashed up.

The university library had also been attacked. Panes of glass were scattered along our walk back to Linthorpe Road.

We crossed into the Gresham area of the town and on the other side of some wasteland where we saw around 70 masked white youths, dressed in black, setting a car alight and chasing down a minibus taxi.

As the fire took hold, the rioters, spooked by a convoy of riot vans, ran towards us.

We ran around the wasteland as they ran across it. Riot vans sped past us to join a police line on Linthorpe Road to stop the rioters getting back into Gresham, so we took the chance to film next to the burning car.

The Confrontation

We decided to go back towards where it all started, at the Cenotaph. As we walked, with the roadworks to one side of us and wasteland to the other, we saw a group of about 20 masked Asian men shouting “EDL? EDL?” and running across the high street towards us.

They were chasing a white man. We ran back to avoid being trapped by the roadworks and then saw the man fall into the ditch we had just been walking by. The gang jumped on him.

Elsewhere, we came across a white Eastern European man, who wanted to talk to us. He had had his windows smashed in at his family’s home, and all the cars had been smashed on his street too.

He told us: “People just smashing up houses and breaking windows and stuff. They broke the window on the corner.

"This is family, you know what I mean. It’s stupid. What the f*** is going on? You know what I mean, we’re supposed to be together. We’re supposed to be one.”

As we filmed vandalised cars on nearby Parliament Road, we were approached ourselves and asked if we were "EDL".

With no sight of any police, we showed them our press passes to prove we weren’t members of the disbanded Far Right, English Defence League.

They let us on our way, but 10 minutes later, on Park Lane, just behind Albert Park, we saw another group of masked males, some teens, some young men, roaming the streets armed with wooden planks, metal bars and even axes.

After taking a long hard stare at us for what seemed an eternity, they walked on.

It was time to bail.

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know...