Rioters in Nottingham damage vehicles

About 40 vehicles were damaged in a night of violence in Nottingham described by one senior officer as "motivated" by the London riots.

Most of the incidents happened in the St Ann's area, but police foiled an attempt to break into the Victoria Centre in the city centre.

About 30 people were involved in the trouble which broke out at 23:30 BST and lasted about three hours.

A 16-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were arrested.

More than 100 officers were deployed when the trouble began, but no injuries were reported.

A police station was attacked with petrol bombs, windows of people's houses were smashed and about 40 vehicles were damaged in St Ann's.

Firefighters were called to four vehicle fires and two bin fires in St Ann's.

'Thuggish criminality'

A man who lives on Ranby Walk, St Ann's, with his partner and three-year-old son, said a brick had been thrown through his son's bedroom window during the disturbance.

"He woke up 20 minutes before and luckily he was in my bed.

"I'm gutted. It's terrible. I was up for four or five hours last night thinking that they were going to come back," he said.

A fire in a container of 200 tyres in Gawthorne Street, New Basford was later found to be accidental.

Nottinghamshire Assistant Chief Constable Paul Scarrott said: "What provoked a night of serious disorder is not clear, but I can only assume that a mindless minority may have somehow, and perversely, felt motivated by the appalling events in London in the last few days.

"Throughout the night officers have put themselves in harm's way to protect the people of this city and their property in what was a fast-moving and dynamic situation.

"But let me be plain. What happened last night has no justification. It was mindless, thuggish criminality, nothing more, nothing less."

Police said the trouble began when a group of about 30 people threw missiles at a marked police car in Abbotsford Drive in St Ann's.

Officers said the group then went to the city centre and tried to break into JD Sports in the Victoria Centre.

A car was stolen and rolled into 10 other cars in Pym Street in St Ann's. Cars were also damaged in Kelham Green and Luther Close.

Two people were arrested over the disturbances and remain in police custody

One man, who lives in Pym Street but did not want to be named, said: "At about one o'clock a couple of police vans came down. They sort of turned around and about two minutes after they'd gone it was just carnage.

'Fully masked'

"A rampage of about 20 to 30 youths came down jumping on the cars, then the white one rolled down into my car.

"At least nobody was injured, but it's all the hassle to get it sorted."

A woman, who had her car damaged in St Ann's, said: "There were at least 15 youths running down, on bicycles, on foot, fully masked, bandanas on.

"They were running down, bombarding cars, jumping on them, finding things on a building site across the road, throwing them at cars.

"By the time you could get out of your house they had gone on to the next street. I'm angry. Very, very angry. It's just so wrong."

Police said culprits had been caught on CCTV and further arrests were expected.

Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol also saw violence after a third night of rioting in London.