Experts warn riots could happen again unless police get more funding

Experts are warning that without more funding into policing - more riots like those last summer - could return to Staffordshire's streets.

A report into last summer's unrest in the wake of three little girls being killed in Southport -says police should have picked up on social media there could be trouble.

Violence erupted in many areas of the country, including in Stoke-on-Trent and Tamworth - where a hotel housing asylum seekers was targeted.

The government review's concluded officers on the ground policed the protests fairly and has praised their efforts - but that better intelligence gathering was needed.

It highlight that Staffordshire Police - among others - weren't prepared for what they faced.

James Treadwell is a Professor in Criminology at University of Staffordshire. He told us:

"If there's the absence of the state doing that peace keeping and dealing with the low level problems of crime and disorder that blights communities, the danger is others will step in and fill that void. That is a situation we're not far away from.

"Very often what tends to happen is that people at the bottom of society don't look up the ladder to where the causes of the problems are, what happens is in the absence of the state they'll often look inward and towards each other in their communities, and turn on each other.

"In failing to invest, inform and reconsider policing - we're in fact setting ourselves on a dangerous path and things won't improve and community tensions will continue to rise."

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