Police prepared to flood the streets of English towns tonight to ensure that weekend drinking does not reignite the rioting that swept London and other cities this week.
Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Steve Kavanagh said 16,000 officers, instead of the usual 2,500, would remain on duty in London in their biggest peacetime deployment - a measure of the perceived public order challenge.
Prime minister David Cameron, describing the four nights of wild looting, arson and violence, in which five people were killed, as "criminality, pure and simple," has called the initial police response inadequate.
In a statement to the House of Commons yesterday, Mr Cameron said the police had got their tactics wrong in treating the initial disturbances as a public order issue and not a criminal issue.
His remarks drew a sharp response from the police service, which is facing deep cuts in numbers as part of a sweeping government austerity drive aimed at slashing public debt.
However, Scotland Yard’s acting commissioner Tim Godwin rejected criticism as he left a meeting with ministers at Whitehall this morning.
“What I can say is that with the unprecedented scenes that we found in London, I have got some of the best commanders that we have seen in the world... that showed great restraint as well as great courage,” Mr Godwin told reporters. “As a result of that, we were able to nip this in the bud after a few days. As a result of that, we have now got a lot of public support, we are working hard to identify all the offenders, and we will continue to work relentlessly if it takes us months.”
"The fact that politicians chose to come back is an irrelevance in terms of the tactics that were by then developing," said Hugh Orde, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, referring to Mr Cameron and other senior ministers who cut short their holidays after two days of mayhem at home.
Mr Cameron chaired the meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergency committee this morning after vowing to do “whatever it takes” to restore order to the streets. He is considering a raft of new measures, including giving police powers to shut down social media outlets if it is believed they are being used to plot violence, and powers to force suspected criminals to remove hoods or masks.
Those affected by the riots will be compensated by the government, and those involved in the violence will be tracked down and punished, the prime minister said yesterday.
More than 1,600 people have been arrested during the unrest.
Courts have sat through the night to process those accused of crimes ranging from assault to stealing a bottle of water. One London looter, 24-year-old Natasha Reid, turned herself into police because she could not sleep for guilt after stealing a television, according to her defence lawyer.
In another case, Chelsea Ives (18), who is among thousands of people enrolled as "ambassadors" to help visitors to the 2012 Olympics, was identified by her mother who saw her on television after allegedly throwing bricks at a police car, media said. Ms Ives has denied charges of burglary and violent disorder.
Most defendants were remanded in custody, even when they pleaded guilty to relatively minor offences.
"The fightback has well and truly begun," Mr Cameron told an emergency session of parliament yesterday, outlining a range of measures aimed at preventing any repeat of England's worst riots in decades. Targeting street gangs became a top priority.
The trouble began in London after police shot dead a black man and refused to give his relatives information about the incident, but then degenerated into widespread looting and violence in many parts of the capital and other major cities.
Britain could make it easier to evict people from government housing for rioting, a minister said today, the latest move by a coalition desperate to show it is tough on crime.
"That may sound a little harsh, but I don't think this is a time to pussyfoot around," said communities minister, Eric Pickles adding that the measure would require legal changes. "These people have done their best to make people frightened on the streets where they live. They've done their best to destroy neighbourhoods, and frankly I don't feel terribly sympathetic towards them."
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is keen to regain the initiative after early criticism that it was slow to respond to the rioting which has overturned Britain's image abroad as a generally peaceable and orderly society.
Richard Mannington Bowes (68), who was left in a coma when he was attacked by a mob in Ealing on Monday, died late last night. Police arrested a 22-year-old man on suspicion of his murder.
His death follows those of three men who were run down by a car as they attempted to protect their community from looters in Birmingham and the murder of a father-of-four (26), who was shot during violence in Croydon.
Britain is divided over what caused the disorder, but many people fear any reduction in police numbers would leave the country exposed if similar trouble erupted in future.
The Labour Party has urged the government to abandon its plans for a 20 per cent phased cut in police funding.
Community leaders and some commentators point to poverty, unemployment and a sense of exclusion among many young people, with public sector cuts likely to hit the poor hardest.
The disturbances have been described in some Middle Eastern media as the British equivalent of the Arab Spring. Concerns about the UK’s image around the world have been expressed by business leaders in Britain.
Business secretary Vince Cable said that the British government would work with the foreign investor community “to restore confidence in the UK as a destination for investment”.
The British Chambers of Commerce said that it was also concerned about the UK’s international reputation, especially in the retail and tourism sectors.
Additional reporting: Agencies