Riot police tackle race clashes

Five cars were torched during the violence

A weekend of racial violence in Burnley has climaxed with more than 200 youths attacking shops, homes and vehicles.

Police in riot gear managed to head off direct confrontation between gangs of Asian and white youths in the Lancashire town - but admitted they were taken by surprise at the scale of Sunday night's violence.

This has taken us a little by surprise

Inspector John Clucas

It marked an escalation from minor disturbances on Saturday night, apparently sparked by white youths attacking an Asian taxi driver the previous evening.

Sunday night's violence involved more than 200 youths, some armed with baseball bats, and four arrests were made, according to police.

Inspector John Clucas said: "This has taken us a little by surprise although we had an increased number of officers in the area.

"What we are doing now is working with members of the community and community leaders to find out what's caused this escalation and why these incidents took place and put things in place to prevent them happening again."

Police blamed

A spokeswoman for the force said they believed the disputes were "of a local nature and have not involved any outside influences".

Burnley is around 30 miles from Oldham, the scene of serious race riots last month.

Blame for the weekend's violence was initially put on police by Asian community leaders, who said it had taken 30 minutes for them to respond to Saturday's alleged attack on the taxi driver.

The minor disturbances that followed later the same day saw police pelted with missiles and a pub's windows smashed.

You would expect us to defend ourselves

White resident

Sunday remained mostly quiet during the day, apart from another taxi driver suffering minor facial injuries when a brick was hurled through his windscreen.

But tensions rose again in the evening, with an Asian newsagent's shop and cars set ablaze and other vehicles overturned.

Earlier a large group of white men shouting racist abuse was reported to have walked towards a mosque.

They were met by a group of Asian youths who hurled bricks and bottles, some of which hit a small number of riot police caught between the two groups.

Sex shop attacked

Meanwhile a sex shop was fire-bombed by Asian youths - reportedly in retaliation for the attack on the newsagent, located in a white neighbourhood.

Around 150 Asian youths gathered near a football pitch, claiming they were ready to defend their community against white attacks.

Two pubs, the Baltic and Duke of York - which was targeted on Saturday night - were attacked after claims they were meeting places for white racists.

The pub was targeted on Saturday and Sunday nights

Community leader Shahid Malik condemned the violence but said it was a reaction to serious provocation.

"This has been a tragic weekend for Burnley and we must now work to rebuild things."

Mr Malik added that many of the Asian youths were satisfied that two pubs seen as hotbeds of racism had been attacked.

He said: "I do not condone such attacks but there is a feeling that these were places where racists met and were used as bases to carry out attacks, the most recent being an incident today when a taxi driver had a brick thrown through his windscreen as he passed the Baltic."

The police had done "very well" and tried to handle the situation sensitively, he added.

'Random' attacks

Earlier one white man among the onlookers drawn onto the streets by the disturbances, who did not wish to be named, said: "We are not here to cause trouble but the police are stopping us walking around our own town."

"I've got no problem with Asian people - I work with them and have lived alongside them all my life.

"But if we do get gangs of them charging through here and attacking people and cars and houses randomly then you would expect us to defend ourselves."