London riots: liability is strict

Three video firms whose stock was looted or destroyed during the 2011 London riots have won £3m compensation from the Mayor’s office.

The Court of Appeal found that consequential loss was in principle recoverable and held the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime liable under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 for damage to stock held at a Sony warehouse in Enfield.

Under s 2(1) of the 1886 Act, the police are obliged to pay compensation out of a police fund to any person who suffers loss “where a house, shop, or building in a police area has been injured or destroyed, or the property therein has been injured, stolen, or destroyed, by any persons riotously and tumultuously assembled together”. The Court of Appeal upheld the high court’s finding that liability is strict.

Delivering his judgment, Lord Justice Moore-Bick, Master of the Rolls, said: “Strictly speaking, all that matters for the purposes of the Act is whether the group which attacked the warehouse was riotously and tumultuously assembled at the time they caused the damage.”

Lawrence Abramson, consultant solicitor at Keystone Law, who represented the three video firms, says: “The Riot Act states that the police must compensate businesses for damage caused during riots and so most insurance policies do not include provisions for this type of loss.

My clients desperately need to recover the losses they have incurred as a result of the events in 2011 so I am pleased that Court of Appeal has upheld its decision and that they will receive the compensation they need.”