The sergeant in charge of PC Keith Blakelock's unit has told a murder trial of the "absolutely terrifying" moment police officers came under attack by a mob with iron bars and a machete.
David Pengelly told the Old Bailey, London, how he led his team of 10 officers to protect firefighters tackling a blaze at a supermarket on an upper deck of the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, London.
Mr Pengelly gave his "nightmare" account of the night of October 6, 1985 at the trial of Nicky Jacobs, 45, who is accused of murdering PC Blakelock, 40.
Mr Pengelly told how his team, serial 502, were not "shield trained" at the time, but nevertheless kitted themselves out in fire protective boiler suits, visors and long and round shields before going to the scene.
When they arrived, he said: "It was a scene of considerable disorder. There were lines of officers with shields. There were missiles being thrown. It was a scene of considerable rioting."
As the team went with firefighters, it was PC Blakelock who suggested someone should stay by the stairwell to protect their exit, which he and another officer then did.
Mr Pengelly said: "I saw a group of youths. My eye was drawn to youths who were running underneath us." One rioter he noticed had muslin covering his face, with eye holes cut into it, he said.
Some of the youths started to run around to "effectively out flank us and cut off our retreat" so Mr Pengelly gave the order to retreat down the stairs to the ground level.
"Obviously at this point, the rioters were right with us hammering on the shields. It was an absolutely terrifying scenario.
"As we retreated down the stairway there were people with iron bars and at least one with a machete, effectively trying to chop the shields to bits. The retreat to ground level was a continuing nightmare."
The trial continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article