PHIL MAXWELL

Riots are often sparked off by some deep seated social injustice. The Toxteth riots of 1981 emerged during a recession with high unemployment and deep rooted tensions between the local population and the police.

The Merseyside police force at the time had a particularly bad reputation in the area for stopping and searching black youths under the hated ‘sus’ laws. Chief constable Ken Oxford led a police force that regularly arrested and harassed black youth in Toxteth. His astonishing rants at the time speak volumes about the racism that permeated the police force then: “Policemen in general and detectives in particular, are not racialist, despite what many Black groups believe. … Yet they are the first to define the problem of half-castes in Liverpool. Many are the products of liaisons between black seamen and white prostitutes in Liverpool 8, the red-light district. Naturally, they do not grow up with any kind of recognizable home life. Worse still, after they have done the round of homes and institutions, they gradually realize they are nothing.”

The main image in the work below was built around a photograph I took of a demonstration calling for the resignation of the then Chief Constable Ken Oxford. Standing beneath the banner of the ‘Liverpool 8 Defence Committee’ the boy with the placard ‘We dare to defend our rights’ stared dirtectly into the camera. The police behind him were taken from a number of images from a demonstration I covered in 1985 organised by the Newham 7 campaign in East London.

Shortly after the above was photo was taken the police, carrying riot shields, swept the park and expelled everyone. I used one of the images taken shortly after this one for the police behind the boy.

This work will feature in ‘The Art Of Resistance’ summer show (details to follow).