Violence spreads across England

An image taken from a CCTV camera released by the Metropolitan police yesterday shows masked rioters standing by a smashed shop in West Northwood in London during rioting late last night. Prime Minister David Cameron recalled parliament to tackle riots yesterday.Photo: AFP

Youths smashed their way into stores and torched cars in central England yesterday, police said, as Britain's worst riots for decades entered a fourth night.
Riots swept through London and in other English cities every night since Saturday in Tottenham following the shooting of a local man by police.
A gang of about 200 hurled missiles at police in riot gear, set vehicles alight and smashed shops in the town of West Bromwich, near Birmingham, Britain's second-biggest city, according to police and a BBC report.
Television pictures showed a gang lined up behind a barricade in a stand-off with scores of police in front of vans.
Violence also erupted in the nearby city of Wolverhampton, where youths broke into shops.
Copycat riots broke out in other flashpoints areas on Sunday, and by Monday night they had spread across the city, from the wealthy districts of Notting Hill and Clapham, inner-city Peckham and Hackney, and suburban Croydon and Ealing.
The violence also spread outside London on Monday night, including to Liverpool, where hundreds of rioters rampaged through the streets of the northwest city for several hours, setting cars and dustbins alight.
Police across England are gearing up after trouble spread to Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool and Nottingham.
Forces from across the country are sending officers to the capital to support the Metropolitan Police, which will have 16,000 officers on duty.
Prime Minister David Cameron recalled parliament and ordered thousands of extra police onto the streets yesterday to tackle the violence.
After cutting short his holiday in Italy to return to Britain for an emergency meeting on the riots, Cameron said his government would "do everything necessary to restore order to the streets, and to make them safe" for law-abiding people.
Addressing the mainly young men responsible for the "sickening scenes" of looting and arson, he said: "You will feel the full force of the law. And if you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishments."
More than 600 people have been arrested and police have begun releasing footage of people they want to question.
A 26-year-old man shot in his car in Croydon during last night's rioting has died and a murder hunt is under way. Police have not confirmed whether the shooting was linked to the riots.
Scotland Yard said the rampage by hundreds of hooded youths overnight was the worst in living memory in London. The unrest is the worst since the 1980s and has raised questions about security in London ahead of the Olympic Games which take place in the east of the capital in a year's time.
Despite the scenes of devastation, Acting Police Commissioner Tim Godwin said there were "no plans" for the army to get involved.
Some 44 police officers were injured overnight Monday, in addition to at least 35 who were hurt on the previous two evenings, police said.
Police in Birmingham, in central England, said they had made 100 arrests as youths ran riot and looted shops in the city centre overnight.
Some of the worst destruction was in Croydon, a suburb of south London, where an entire block of buildings -- including a 100-year-old family furniture business -- was burned down, sending flames leaping into the night sky.
The owner of the furniture business, Trevor Reeves, told Sky News: "Words fail me. It's just gone, it's five generations. My father is distraught at the moment. It's just mindless thuggery."