10 April 2011 Last updated at 01:20

In pictures: Brixton riots

The Brixton riots in April 1981 lasted three days as Metropolitan Police officers struggled to contain rioters who set fire to cars and attacked buildings.

In early April, tensions in the area were heightened by Operation Swamp - an attempt to cut street crime in Brixton which used the controversial "Sus law" to stop and search more than 1,000 people in six days

Rumours of police brutality against a black man later led to an angry crowd gathering to confront officers on the evening of 10 April. The disturbances were contained after a few hours but an arrest the following night sparked off the rioting in earnest.

Over three days more than 300 people were injured and the damage caused cost an estimated £7.5m to repair.

Brixton was an area where 25% of residents were from an ethnic minority group and about half of young black men had no job.

A man holds up his fist giving the Black Power salute and sticking his tongue out in defiance, as he stands on top of an overturned burnt-out car. The car had been hit by a petrol bomb during rioting on 13 April 1981.

Several buildings were left gutted by the riots, the worst in London for a century.

Lord Scarman was appointed by the Home Secretary to hold a public inquiry into the riots. His report said there was "no doubt racial disadvantage was a fact of current British life" but he concluded that "institutional racism" did not exist in the Metropolitan force.

A man walks along Railton Road in Brixton in April 2011, the scene of rioting 30 years ago. Brixton remains a centre of multiculturalism.

London

In pictures: Brixton riots

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