Mr Whitelaw acted with commendable speed in appointing an inquiry into the terrifying violence in Brixton last weekend. And Lord Scarman has the experience and temperament to produce recommendations that may help prevent similar riots in Brixton and elsewhere. Mr Hattersley and others have criticised the terms of reference as too restricted and would prefer a wider-ranging inquiry. Mr Whitelaw has made the right choice. Lord Scarman’s brief will allow him to range as widely as he finds necessary and we should be surprised if he did not look well below the surface in his search for the causes of what happened and remedies. But surely it is sensible to take the problem of policing racially mixed areas of inner cities as his starting point. As Lord Scarman himself put it: “… it is the relationship between the police and the local young I am most concerned to examine. Something appears to have gone wrong there and I have got to find it out.”
It would be foolish to pretend there was a single cause. But there is a mountain of evidence that a major cause was a breakdown of trust between the police and people of Brixton. The deterioration has happened over a period of years, and there have been ample warnings.
Key quote
“If you mention community relations to the ordinary policeman, he either falls about laughing or starts cursing.”
The Rev Robert Nind, vicar of Brixton
Talking point
General practitioners who readily prescribe tranquilisers for patients under stress are being blamed by hospital specialists for a worrying growth in the number of people taking overdoses.The increase is particularly alarming in women aged 15 to 24, among whom the rate has risen more than 10 times over the past 20 years.
Peter Durish reports in a page 3 story headlined ‘GPs give too many pills out’
