'Significant failings' during city disorder - report

"Significant failings" in policing and civic leadership contributed to serious disorder that broke out across Leicester more than three years ago, a new report has found.

Dozens of people were arrested after days of vandalism, assaults, and attacks on property in the east of the city in August and September 2022.

Findings into the causes of the unrest, led by academics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and the London School of Economics (LSE), were released on Monday.

It concluded that the responses from Leicestershire Police and Leicester City Council to the disorder - which involved mainly young men from Hindu and Muslim communities - were "lacking or inconsistent".

The research was carried out independently of a government-commissioned review, a panel that is being led by former Labour MP Lord Ian Austin, which has yet to release its findings.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it was reviewing the panel's work and would respond "in due course".

Leicestershire Police said it would carefully consider the findings of the SOAS and LSE review, and the government inquiry, as part of its "ongoing commitment to learning and improvement".

Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said he had not yet received a copy of the report but would "obviously look carefully at what they have to say".

The authors of the latest 218-page report, called Better Together: Understanding the 2022 Violence in Leicester, said they wanted to examine the causes and impact of the unrest and identify lessons for Leicester and other UK cities.

Their report said no single community had been solely responsible for the unrest, which was fuelled by misinformation and "fear messaging" on social media with so-called influencers spreading unverified false claims.

The report, based, in part, on interviews and surveys carried out with more than 300 people in the city, said rapidly spreading misinformation "acted as an accelerant throughout the unrest, spreading inaccurate information, deepening communal divides, and undermining trust".

It also said external political and ideological influences intensified local tensions and distorted public understanding of the unfolding events in Leicester.

According to the report, this included sustained disinformation by Hindu nationalist organisations in the UK and India, and by political Islamist individuals in the UK.

The report concluded: "The 2022 violence in Leicester revealed the fragility of inter-community relations, the limits of the city's long-celebrated multicultural framework, and several institutional failures.

"While Leicester's history illustrates considerable resilience and community coexistence, the recent violence demonstrates how economic hardship, weakened civic infrastructure and divisive ideologies, including from abroad, can erode trust in formerly settled, convivial and diverse places."

The report also said the unrest exposed "a disconnect" between young people and established religious and community institutions in the city.

It claimed the authorities in the city did not fully address "serious incidents" in the community from May 2022, which then contributed to the later escalation of disorder.

"Police responses were delayed, inconsistent, and at times disproportionate, reflecting failures of intelligence and proactive planning," the report added.

"During the Leicester unrest, the police suffered from intelligence gaps, poor communication, inconsistent operational decisions, and a lack of understanding of communal dynamics in South Asian communities.

"We found members of both Hindu and Muslim communities distrustful of police actions."

The report also claimed the city council had failed to provide clear leadership, manage the tensions effectively, or offer adequate support to residents.

"The city council's weak crisis leadership and outdated multicultural and power-broking frameworks failed to calm rising tensions, and prevented the coordinated political response required to address the violence, and undermined trust," it said.

The report found council cuts to services during a decade of austerity had contributed to the unrest through "the collapse of integration infrastructure".

It also said Leicester's low-wage economy and its shrinking textile sector, leading to unemployment, had been a factor in the unrest.

When the BBC asked the council about the report's criticisms, the mayor reiterated he could not comment on a report he had not been allowed to see.

Sir Peter also said: "When they began their research, nearly three years ago, I did raise some questions with them about their independence, who had commissioned them, and how they were going to take evidence.

"I didn't get a convincing explanation. I don't know who they have spoken to."

The report's authors said the mayor had "consistently" rejected their attempts to meet him and had claimed the inquiry was "biased in some way, though without saying how it might be biased".

The report concluded that the aftermath of the 2022 events left Leicester's "inter-community trust profoundly fractured".

"Without concerted and sustained action, there remains a significant risk of further division and the potential for renewed communal violence," it said.

The authors have made a number of recommendations aimed at preventing future disorder.

They include:

• Targeted investment in youth services, housing, education, and community regeneration
• Community-led, accountable policing with improved understanding of communal dynamics and faster responses to emerging tensions
• National and local action to counter misinformation and disinformation, including digital literacy initiatives
• Clear political leadership that rejects communal and sectarian campaigning and promotes shared civic identity
• Long-term rebuilding of shared secular spaces that bring people together across religious lines and led by young people from all communities

The report also said there had been acts of solidarity and cross-community support and said Leicester's "admirable history of coexistence" was a critical foundation for renewed community trust.

Juan Méndez, chair of the panel that led the research, said: "The events of 2022 were deeply traumatic for many residents, but we met many people who have high hopes for all communities in Leicester co-existing peacefully.

"Much depends on how young people work better together."

Méndez, a human rights lawyer and former advisor to the United Nations, added: "Our report is not about apportioning blame but understanding how tensions escalated, why safeguards failed, and how trust can be rebuilt through fair and accountable action."

"We acknowledge with satisfaction that the events [of 2022] have not repeated themselves," Méndez added.

"But we also feel we would be wrong to be complacent about it because, as of August 2022, nobody thought that something like that would have happened."

Ch Supt Shane O'Neill, of Leicestershire Police, said the force's response to the disorder "was at all times guided by the principle of policing without fear or favour".

"The disorder placed significant and sustained demand on the force, due to its duration, the scale of offending, and the substantial volume of evidence that needed to be identified, reviewed and processed in order to bring offenders to justice," O'Neill said.

The force added it had worked closely with communities and partners to identify the causes of the unrest and address them.

It said it continued to offer religious and community leaders and councillors the chance to join police patrols to try to promote transparency and build trust.

The force said more than 50 people had been charged in connection with the disorder.

It said it had subsequently strengthened its East Leicester neighbourhood team and ensured officers were briefed on cultural awareness, including religious festivals and customs.

The force said it also used channels, including WhatsApp groups, to communicate with residents and try to combat misinformation.

By Jeremy Ball, East Midlands social affairs correspondent

This wide-ranging report sets out how a weekend of serious disorder exposed religious tensions that raised fundamental questions about Leicester's reputation as a model of multi-culturalism.

It says those tensions stemmed from a wave of new immigration from India after the early 2000s, when many Hindu workers from Daman and Diu moved to largely Gujarati Muslim neighbourhoods.

The authors say genuine grievances emerged on all sides, as new religious traditions and processions - including car convoys - were interpreted as provocative acts of "political extremism".

They found those divisions were "inflamed" by agitators in both India and the UK, who used social media to spread fear and misinformation for their own "political ends", as the police and city council struggled to keep pace.

The report blames both "political Islamist" influencers in the UK, and what it describes as "Hindu nationalist actors" backed by "elements of the Indian government", supported by international media networks.

The authors know that last finding will be extremely contentious, and a detailed rebuttal of claims that they are biased says 281 Hindus constitute the largest group who worked on this report.

They are calling for an independent public inquiry into extremism - and say that definition needs to treat what they call "radical and militant Hindu nationalism" in the same way as politicial Islamism and far-right white nationalism.

They are also calling for a rapid response unit to counter disinformation in Leicester.

Follow BBC Leicester on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.