News of Pc Keith Blakelock’s murder spread rapidly across the Broadwater Farm Estate, and according to multiple sources, as word spread the intensity of the anger seemed to ebb away, the rioters thinned out and the police regained control of the streets at around 4:30 am.

Smoke still hung in the air as the injured officers of Shield Serial 502 were variously taken to hospital or were left to sit in their Sherpa Van in a state of dazed, terrified, shock. The van wasn’t an official van, it was a private hire that had been used to ferry the officers into the riot. There would be no special sessions with councillors or mental-health advocates, this was the mid-nineteen-eighties where psychological problems were regarded as weaknesses rather than the natural consequences of dreadfully traumatising events that need treatment much like any other injury. More than one member of Serial 502 was left to find their own way to and from hospital.

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Throughout all of this, what cannot be forgotten is that a father of three went to work and never came home. He was set upon by a violent and bloody mob, and as yet, no successful prosecutions have convicted anyone of the crimes against Keith Blakelock.