Outnumbered, outmanoeuvred UK police struggle to prevent fresh riots

A gang of boys and girls, most under 15, and some apparently, less than eight, broke into a row of shops in Bethnal Green, in the East End and carried away piles of clothes, even as a police car drove past.

Police vans, however, did arrive on the scene on calls made of 999 but it was already too late.

On a night that witnessed untold destruction that left homes across the city in flames, this was a small incident, but it still said a lot about how life in Britain's capital city had changed in a matter of a few days.

With rioters looting and  burning their way through London's shopping centres and high streets for a third successive night, Scotland Yard's 6,000 street officers were hopelessly outmanoeuvred and outnumbered.

But even on arriving in force like during Monday night's first clashes in Hackney, the police could do little but retreat as youths showered them with bottles and stones and set cars ablaze. The destruction did not stop even with the deployment of armoured vehicles for protection of  London neighbourhoods such as Clapham in the south and Ealing to the west.

Meanwhile,  hard-working London shopkeepers, commuters and families, proud of their homes and their well-kept streets, started giving up on the police protecting them.