Midnight looting at Arena last night

At about 11.15 last night hints start to come through on Twitter that Harringay was about to be targeted by the looters. Just over a half an hour later, Endymion Road resident Annie Hall started a thread on HoL reporting that people were running past her house with armsful of clothes.

Shortly after that we had reports coming in of the police arriving. The incident was all over after about an hour. Surgical and targeted.

Nonetheless it was with come trepidation that I went down to the Arena Shopping Park today. Having seen the pictures of Tottenham, I didn't know what I'd find.

Arena Shopping Park this morning

The shops affected were the Carphone Warehouse, Sports World, Peacocks and Sainsbury's. The gang tried and failed to gain entry to Argos. The staff this morning put that down to the heavy duty bolt they have holding down their shutter. (Unfortunately that same strength now has the staff locked out of the shop).

A surgical strike on CPW was the first order of the night

An attempt was also made to break into Next, but it looks like the gang were disturbed and the store escaped with no more than a broken window.

I spoke with Bappy and Chris, two McDonalds staffers on duty last night. They witnessed the whole thing. Bappy told me, "It was terrifying. They came at about 11.30. At first there was only about 15 of them. They made an attempt on Carphone Warehouse and then ran off."

"About 10 minutes later a bigger group, between 40 and 60, came back and this time they got in to Carphone Warehouse.

Bappy detailed how the gang went from shop to shop, returning to their cars to dump their haul between each shop. He told me that some had their cars parked in the Arena shopping park, but we know from other eyewitness reports that looters also parked up in Endymion, Umfreville, Burgoyne and Cavendish Roads.

"It all looked very planned", Chris told me. "First they went to CPW, then round the corner where Peacocks got hit and finally to Sports World"

Next seems to have escaped damage

 Wrong brew at Costa? The store was untouched

The McDonalds boys weren't able to see it, but at the same time Sainsbury's was also being looted. About a dozen looters broke in through a window at the far end. Walking through the store this morning, you wouldn't have a clue that anything had happened. They made straight for the TV section and made off with the store's stock of TVs. They also broke in to the dozen or so tills, stealing this morning's float money. I found store manager Kevin with a few folk from Head Office. He was understandably very wary of too much being reported and I agreed to report no more than these bare facts.

 How the looters got in to Sainsbury's

Looters took the TVs. Untouched, on the neighbouring shelves are the smaller electrical items they didn't fancy.

 This morning all looks perfectly normal at Sainsbury's to outward appearances

He did tell me, however, that the store is ceasing trading 24 hours until they can be sure there will be no more trouble. So from tonight, get your snacks in before ten.

I asked Bappy how the looting was stooped. "At first he said one police van came on its own. The looters chased it away. The same happened with a second van. Then after a bit about ten vans came and the police chased everyone away. Some ran out through the houses at the back and some escaped on to Green Lanes".

"The police stayed all night after that", said Chris. "That was a real relief for us. About fifteen of us had locked ourselves in for about an hour. This morning we had all the police in here having breakfast. They had stab vests on and everything, but they weren't riot police".

Bappy finished off with a soulful comment. "There were about a hundred or more people watching from Green Lanes. They seemed to be enjoying it. I just don't understand it"

Nor do I Bappy. However the tweeters on the ground last night were speculating that some of the looters re-purposed themselves as looters. So it just may be that there's the explanation.

The shops on Green Lanes were being guarded by a watchful community of traders and their friends and remained unscathed, thank goodness.

So, what a night then; horrible, surreal, scary and awful. But it could all have been so much worse. Two jewellers on Saturday night and four shops in the Arena Park. And we didn't see mindless rioting; we saw planned and targeted looting by groups of young tearaways.

I very much hope things will now calm down all over London, but most of all that Harringay will not suffer any more looting.

What happened at the Arena last night was a midnight shopping spree without the bill