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As observers point to the worst of the riots appearing to end, a senior police officer tells The Eye exclusively that the reason none of the trouble happened in Wales was because of better community relations.
Violent disturbances erupted in towns and cities throughout England as well as in Belfast, and were reported all over the world, but Wales largely escaped.
The most extreme unrest has been in places like Hartlepool, Hull, Liverpool, Middlesbrough and Rotherham.
Now a serving officer in one force has told us: “There are benefits to having four forces in such a small country. It means the police are very close to the community. I am convinced that was the reason we had no rioting in Wales.”.
Reasons for the riots seeming to dissipate may have included the swift dispensation of heavy jail terms for those responsible, and the huge demonstrations to counter protests by the far right.
At their height, though, the image of the UK was tarnished across the globe, and right wing commentators appeared to fan the flames of discontent, but were condemned by policy-makers.
Hundreds took to the streets, in powerful demonstrations opposing the violence of the far right, and the Metropolitan Police (Met) Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley declared that the people involved were “very peaceful”.
There has been a series of court cases, with some people convicted being given heavy jail sentences.
Many of the troublemakers have been youngsters drawn by the thrill of mindless violence rather than by the application of revolutionary theory.
But not all of those who took part were teenage thugs
For example Derek Drummond, is 58 and from Southport, but pleaded guilty to violent disorder as well as assault of an emergency worker.
His fellow accused (now convicted) Liam Riley, is 41, from Kirkdale, and also admitted violent disorder along with a racially aggravated public order offence in Liverpool.
Meanwhile Declan Geiran, is 29 from Liverpool, and said that he, too, committed violent disorder as well as arson in his home city.
The judge who sent them to prison, Andrew Menary KC declared: “every decent member of the community affected by these events will have been appalled, horrified and deeply disturbed about what had taken place in their neighbourhoods”.
Mr Menary said about John O’Malley, aged 43, who was jailed for 32 months for violent disorder in Southport,“You were at the front of what was essentially a baying mob. You were at the front and participating enthusiastically”.
Even pensioners were not exempt from the wrath of the law.
William Morgan, aged 69, was also given 32 months after pleading guilty to violent disorder and possession of an offensive weapon in Liverpool.
One couple joined in with the rioting in Hartlepool on their way back from Bingo. Steven Mailen, who is 54, and Ryan Sheers, aged 29, both pleaded guilty to violent disorder after 200 people gathered in the city on July 31.
Jailing them for two years and two months each at Teesside Crown Court, the judge said the pair were “at the very forefront of the mob” and tried to push through a police cordon.
Mailen was described as “one of the main instigators” of the large-scale disturbance.
At the height of the violence, a contentious comment by Elon Musk on X that “civil war is inevitable”, highlighted what a controversial figure he is.
Mr Musk’s inflammatory announcement during the riots, showed him with a video in Liverpool, but a spokesperson for Sir Keir Starmer said the violence came from a small minority of people who “do not speak for Britain”, and the Prime Minister did not share the sentiments of the billionaire, who has himself been criticised for allowing far-right figures back on to his social media platform.
The spokesperson added: “There’s no justification for comments like that. What we’ve seen in this country is organised, violent thuggery that has no place, either on our streets or online”.
Mr Musk also shared a video of a person purportedly being arrested for offensive comments online, asking: “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”, and replied to a post criticising UK policing, suggesting the police’s response “does seem one-sided“.
He shared, too, a fake Daily Telegraph article claiming Sir Keir was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands.
Mr Musk deleted his post after about 30 minutes but a screenshot captured by Politics.co.uk suggests it had garnered nearly two million views before it was deleted.
In it, he shared an image posted by the co-leader of the far-right group Britain First, Ashlea Simon, which she captioned with, “we’re all being deported to the Falklands”.
The fake piece, purportedly written by a senior news reporter for the Daily Telegraph and mocked up in the newspaper’s style, said camps in the Falklands “would be used to detain prisoners from the ongoing riots as the British prison system is already at capacity”.
Also during the disturbances, Nigel Farage, the Clacton MP and leader of Reform UK, talked absurdly about ‘two-tier policing’, where whites are targeted more than blacks and how “the truth is being withheld from us”.
From a five-star hotel in Cyprus, the English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson swiftly began ramping up anger among his followers about the Southport attack on Mr Musk’s platform X (formerly Twitter), which he blamed on mass migration and Muslims, while calling for deportations.
Police have made hundreds of arrests over the riots, which started after the killing of three girls in a stabbing attack in Southport, and are considering using counter-terrorism laws in prosecutions.
Wales, however, escaped them and its image will remain largely intact.
One senior police officer thinks he knows why…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s decades-long award-winning career in journalism (when seeing violent scenes was commonplace), as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – how during that career, for Phil the latest trends have always featured prominently, and now new worrying figures show that drinking among young people in Wales is on the increase.
