Something disagreeable for lunch sir?


A police photographer. Note his assigned protector with an extra large shield.


Armed and very, very dangerous. The one on the right was terrifying; he was absolutely busting to bust something. Thug.


A police baton charge. You don't want to be in front of one of these.


"You have the right to remain silent..." Notice how several of them stand guard as the single person on the ground is arrested.


This one was quite strange. I had spoken to her a few minutes before she decided to rearrange this restaurant's window display and she had told me how appalled she was at all the violence. Notice suited West End shoppers going about their business; lots of people walked unsuspectingly out of the nearby tube stations to find themselves in the middle of a major riot.


A mounted policeman wobbling his teeth around. The blood down his front is his own. I didn't see what happened to him to do this.


Bins, cars etc. The shops to the left were being looted; I didn't fancy my chances of safely photographing that.


Miscellaneous riot police. The one on the left is goading the crowd to come and have a go. There were two sets of rioters in Trafalgar Square that day.


An oddball who tried to stop the whole thing by standing in the middle of it all and shouting "peace!!" and things like that. Some of the police behind him were laughing their heads off.


This is my favourite: I said "Smile!" and he did. I think that's the building work on the South African Embassy on fire in the background.


Miscellaneous riot police.


A burning car. The cars were scary; they were being lit by rags stuffed into their petrol tanks and people were just walking around as they exploded. Can anyone tell what sort of car it was?


A rioter making his feelings known in more ways than one.


A line of riot police under siege by a vicious crowd of... er... press photographers.


Miscellaneous riot police.

This is the nasty section as far as I was concerned. I was standing in Trafalgar Square when suddenly a whole bunch of people ran past me. I turned (idiot; I should have followed them) and saw this line of riot police storming towards me.


There was a loud bang; I don't remember taking the next photo. It seems to be taken from above a riot policeman?


I don't remember taking this next one either. It's taken from ground level because that's where I landed in a daze. My trainers were still upright on the ground behind me. Someone from the crowd came out into the open to help me up and handed me my trainers.


What was the point of smashing me to the ground with a riot shield? All I had was a camera. If I was a threat, why did they leave me in the square rather than arrest me?

Over 300 complaints were raised against the police that day. None were upheld.

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