People affected by Middlesbrough riots 'are still healing' 12-months on
There's been dozens of arrests since the violent disorder in the town centre
People in Middlesbrough say many of those affected by the riots are still recovering a year-on since it happened.
Today marks 12-months since the violent disorder in the town centre resulting in dozens of arrests in the weeks and months after.
The community came together the day after to clean-up the chaos, with many events to show cohesion within the last year.
Sahida Ditta is from Amal Project Teesside and said: "I feel in the days following the violent disorder there was lots of people coming together as a community to clean the streets, to work together to rebuild the damage that had taken place.
"It's gunna take a lot longre for people to heal from what happened because there was a lot of affect on people emotionally and mentally. I think that's not something you can put a time scale on so I think that's an on-going process.
"We can't sort of step back and say that will never happen again because we need to be honest. There's a constant negative rhetoric pushed out by a lot of media outlets which are demonising certain people within the community, and then it's sort of a blurred line between free speech and the freedom to share hatred.
"There are community tensions out there so we are working hard to support the community but at the same time, we do need to be realistic. This isn't going to just go away any time soon."
Sahida says they put on an Eid event for children earlier this year: "We've brought together children from all diverse backgrounds and it was just great to see them all come together to learn a bit more, not just about Islam, but about community cohesion and we've had some really positive feedback from the teachers that attended. They've asked us if we'll go into schools from September to deliver workshops.
Reverend Charity Hamilton, Methodist Minister of Middlesbrough town centre, said: "The reality is that there are people who have views that other people strongly disagree with and until we can have open conversations about that, then community tensions are always going to be a concern.
"Sahida is a Muslim and I'm a Christian and we've built a friendship following the clean-up after the riots and that friendship has led to us learning a lot I think from each other about our respective faiths and cultures. We try and model and mirror that to our communities.
"I held a town centre carol service which was open to anyone of any faith and during Ramadan, Sahida organised a brilliant Iftar at Cleveland Police Station to which loads of different people were invited and it was one in which I learnt loads as well."