'I don't think anyone's naive enough to think that this is over'

FEARS OF REPEAT OF VIOLENCE SEEN IN GREATER MANCHESTER LAST SUMMER

- By JOSEPH TIMAN

IT STARTED in Southport where three girls aged six, seven and nine were brutally murdered at a dance class in the seaside town.

Then, fuelled by misinformation about the attacker's identity, anger turned into violence and disorder. It spread across the country.

After a mosque was attacked in Southport, Muslims everywhere were on high alert, Fahid Qurashi, who lives in Manchester, recalls.

"I remember being outside my local mosque outside prayer time because we heard that people were going to burn it down," he says.

"We'd seen in Southport there was an incident where the mosque had been smashed up so we knew we were targets.

"It was frightening and scary. People didn't want to go out."

Hotels housing asylum seekers were targets too. In Rotherham, a rioter tried to set fire to one, while others smashed up windows.

Days earlier in Manchester, bottles and bricks were pelted at the police during a protest outside an asylum hotel in Newton Heath.

That weekend, violence erupted at a 'far-right' protest in Piccadilly Gardens too where a lone black man was attacked in a 'melee'.

Then, a list of targets, including immigration offices in Bolton, Cheadle, Wigan and Oldham, started circulating on social media.

Shops and businesses closed early as boards were hammered to the outside of supermarkets and police were preparing to respond to more than 100 planned protests and demonstrations across the country. But after a week of violence, something suddenly changed.