Okay. I need to get this back on track. Plan B. Let’s just get this done.
“Holli, can you tell me your name, age, sentence length, and conviction, please.” It’s an instruction plain and simple. My tone has slipped into that of Amal’s. We don’t have time for whatever game this is.
She sits up slightly in her chair. For better or worse, this dynamic she understands.
“Holli Byford, twenty-three, five years for arson in the London riots,” she answers briskly, by rote.
She was one of the thousands of arrests over the five days of rioting across London in August 2011. The riots began when a peaceful protest at the unlawful shooting of Mark Duggan swiftly escalated into something else entirely. Opportunists, fueled by a sense of self-righteousness, quickly took advantage of the mayhem, and Tottenham descended into chaos. Police were attacked, shops burnt, property destroyed, and shopping malls looted. The chaos spread across London over the next few days and nights. Rioters and looters, realizing they were one step ahead of the police, started to coordinate their attacks via social media platforms. Looters gathered, united, and raided stores, then posted trophy shots of their hauls online. Stores closed, people stayed away, terrified of being attacked or worse.
I remember at the time watching the grainy camera-phone footage of people smashing into JD Sports, desperate for sneakers, desperate for sports socks.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not belittling it. You can only taunt people with the things that they can’t have for so long. You can only push people so far. Until, for better or worse, they push back.
London was in free fall during those five days in August 2011.
Of the 4,600 arrests made over those days, a record 2,250 of them went to court. The sentencing was rapid and it was harsh. The authorities feared that if examples weren’t made of the young people involved, then troubling precedents would be set. Half of those charged, tried, and sentenced were under twenty-one. One of them was Holli.
She sits across the table from me, her gaze once again on the window above.
“And what did you do in the riots, Holli? Talk us through that night, as you remember it.”
She stifles a laugh, her eyes flashing across to Amal, looking for an ally, then slowly traveling over to me, her face hardening again.
“As I remember it”—she smirks—“it was the weekend they shot Mark Duggan. I look on Facebook and everyone’s doing this crazy stuff—they’d broke into this retail park thing and they’ve got all this stuff, like clothes and that, and the police don’t even care, and they’re not even going there to stop anyone.” She adjusts her messy bun slightly. Tightening the knot. “My mate’s brother said he was going to drive us up there to get some stuff but then he got worried about his license plates coming up, so he didn’t.” She stops and looks again at Amal. He’s looking blankly ahead. She’s free to say what she likes.
“Anyway, on Sunday it all kicked off for real everywhere. I got a text from my mate Ash saying they were about to do the Whitgift Centre. It’s like the main shopping center in Croydon. Ash says we’ve gotta wear hoodies, cover our faces, for the CCTV. So we go down there and there’s loads of us. There’s crumbled glass all over the ground in the street and everyone is just standing around. So Ash starts smashing into the electric doors of Whitgift. The alarm starts going then, so we all join in together ’cos we think there’s not gonna be much time till the police come. But no one goes through; we just stand there. Then this guy who’s running past just pushes straight through the crowd and he’s like, ‘What you fucking waiting for, you Muppets,’ and he goes straight in. So then we push in too.
“I get some clothes and some nice stuff. Is this what you’re after?” She breaks off. Her dead-eyed stare on me, again, hard.
“Yes, Holli, it’s exactly what we’re after. Keep going, please.” I nod her on, trying to stay blank, impassive; I don’t want this thrown off track.
She smirks again and shifts in her seat. She continues.
“Then we get hungry and wander back along the main street. People are throwing stuff— those newspaper dispensers, bricks, bottles on fire. Blocking off the road with those big bins. Anyway, Ash joins in and then when we see the police we run for it, Ash and me and his mate, back toward the bus station. It’s quiet round there, no police, and there’s this bus stopped right in the middle of the road, lights on with some people still on it. We wanna get safe for a bit, so we try and get on the bus too but the driver won’t open up the doors. The driver starts having a fucking meltdown, shouting and waving his arms around. Then someone opens up the end door and the people on the bus start pouring out the other end ’cos they’re scared we’re gonna jump ’em or something. The driver’s shitting himself ’cos now the door’s open he’s not so brave anymore. Then he runs for it too and we’ve got the bus to ourselves.”
She leans back into her chair, satisfied, eyes cast up to the glass again.
“It was nice. We went up top and had a lie-down on the back seats and ate some chicken. Had a drink. That’s when they got all our faces.” She says it pensively.
“Anyway, I poured some Jack Daniel’s on the back seats and lit it up with one of those free papers, as a joke. Ash starts laughing ’cos he didn’t think I’d do it, and the whole back bit of the bus goes straight up in flames. So we’re all laughing and throwing more papers on it ’cos it’s fucking messy up there anyway. And it’s burning really hot and stinking, so we go outside to watch. Ash is telling everyone I did it. And now the whole double-decker’s on fire. People passing are high-fiving and fist-bumping me ’cos it looks completely mental. We got some insane photos on my phone. Don’t look at me like that,” she snarls. “I’m not completely retarded. I wasn’t posting the pictures up online or anything.”
“Holli, how did you get caught?” My tone neutral.
Her eyes slip off me. Challenge dropped.
“Turns out I’d been caught on someone’s mobile phone footage, of the bus on fire and us watching it. Ash saying I’d done it. There was a photo on the front page of the local paper the next day. Me watching the bus burn. They used it in court. They got the footage of us on the bus too.”
I’ve watched the burning-bus footage. Holli, her eyes bright like a kid at a fireworks display, joyful, alive. Her friend Ash a menacing wall of muscle and sportswear beside her, her protector. It’s unsettling to watch, the laughter, the excitement, the pride. It’s chilling, given her demeanor now, to know what it takes to make her smile.
“And are you excited to go home soon, Holli?” I have little expectation of an honest answer here but I have to ask.
She shoots another look across at Amal. A pause.
“Yeah, it’ll be good. I miss my crew. I wanna put some normal clothes on.” She shrugs her loose sack of a sweater. “Get some proper food in me. They’re basically starving me in here it tastes so disgusting.”
“Do you think you’d ever do something like that again, once you’re out, Holli?” I ask. It’s worth a shot.
She smiles, finally. Sits up in her seat.
“Definitely not. I won’t be doing anything like that again.” She’s smirking again now. She’s not even trying to lie well. She has every intention of doing something like that again. The conversation is starting to make me feel uncomfortable. For the first time, I wonder if Holli has mental health issues. I want this interview over now.
“And what are your plans for the future?”