LONDON – Detectives have arrested a man over the murder of a policeman hacked to death almost 25 years ago during one of Britain’s worst race riots, police said yesterday.
Police Constable Keith Blakelock died after being attacked by a mob during riots on a run-down housing estate in Tottenham, north London, in October 1985. His colleague PC Richard Coombes was also badly hurt in the incident.
Scotland Yard said a 40-year-old man, originally from Tottenham, was arrested on suspicion of PC Blakelock’s murder in Suffolk last Friday.
A police spokeswoman said the arrest was based on new evidence and was considered to be ‘‘significant’’.
She declined to give any further details about the man, or where he was arrested. He was questioned over the weekend and released on police bail on Monday.
The riots, in which about 500 mainly black youths rampaged through the streets on the Broadwater Farm estate, were the worst the capital had seen for decades.
They followed similar disturbances in Brixton, south London.
PC Blakelock’s murder poisoned relations between the police and the local community, and when detectives launched a fresh investigation in 2003, they admitted it would be difficult.
A young black man, Winston Silcott, was convicted of PC Blakelock’s murder but was cleared in 1991 and awarded £67,000 in compensation from the government and police for wrongful conviction. – (Reuters)