2011 riots could cost taxpayer £100 million in compensation pay-outs

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The taxpayer could be hit with a bill of £100 million or more for compensating businesses and residents whose property was destroyed in the 2011 riots, according to a new report.

A review of the Riot (Damages) Act - which has not been substantially changed since it was written in 1886 - gave the first official estimate of the potential costs of the disorder in London and other English towns.

It also said the insurance industry has paid out £170 million so far - 2,254 claims in total including more than £1.5 million to domestic policyholders.

Some of the £170 million total is included in the cost to the public purse because the Act allows insurers to be compensated for riot claims.

Neil Kinghan, a former civil servant who was commissioned by the Home Office to conduct the detailed review, said in his report: “Public expenditure cost has been £35.2 million on claims under the Act, but it could still grow to £100 million, or more.”

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It compares with claims totalling £17.2 million which were made after the 1981 riots in Brixton, south London; Toxteth in Liverpool and other parts of the country.

Mr Kinghan said the law should continue to allow insurers to be reimbursed.

But he added that a cap should be introduced so that insurers can only claw back money paid out to businesses with a turnover of less than £2 million. Domestic claims would be unaffected.

He said a cap would “ensure the delivery of best value for money for the Exchequer”.

Insurers had warned Mr Kinghan that it might have been necessary to increase premiums for property insurance if the law was changed to prevented them claiming money back from the Treasury.

Mr Kinghan also recommended that uninsured people should continue to be able to claim under the Act.

In addition, the law should be extended to cover damage to cars, which were not invented when the Act was drawn up, and claimants should be reimbursed “new for old” rather than “old for old”.

Otto Thoresen, director general of the Association of British Insurers, said: “We are concerned that the review recommends that insurer recoveries from the state should be restricted to businesses that turn over less than £2 million a year.

“This could be a disincentive for some larger firms to locate in some areas.

“The Government should carry out an impact assessment on the impact of both of these proposals.”

Damian Green, the policing minister, said: “We aim to launch a public consultation by the end of the year.”

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The runaway terrorist, his burka disguise, and a compensation bid

Left: Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed. Right: the An-Noor Masjid (mosque) and community centre on Church Road in Acton. Photo: PA/WILL WINTERCROSS By Jake Wallis-Simons

8:00AM GMT 10 Nov 2013

In many ways, it reads like an airport thriller.

One dull afternoon in late autumn, a 27-year-old British man of Somali origin, with uneven teeth and chubby cheeks, became the latest terror suspect to disappear, making a mockery of the UK security services, police and judiciary.

After spending several hours in the dilapidated An-Noor Masjid (mosque) and community centre on Church Road in Acton, west London, he sliced off his electronic tag, slipped on a burka and vanished.

The fugitive had been subject to a controversial Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure (Tpim) notice, which was supposed to restrict his movements.

The date was November 1; the time 3.15pm. That was the moment when Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed stepped out of the ranks of obscurity and became one of the most wanted men in Britain. On Friday, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

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As any thriller writer knows, mounting an escape in a burka is one of the oldest tricks in the book. When the investigating officers watched CCTV footage of Mohamed’s escape, did they recall the case of Yassin Omar, the failed 21/7 bomber who evaded them by wearing a burka belonging to his mother-in-law?

Or that of Mustaf Jama, the Somali asylum seeker who killed PC Sharon Beshenivsky in 2005 before fleeing Britain dressed in a niqab, using his sister’s passport?

Either way, it would appear that the police failed to detect the signs that Mohamed was planning an escape.

On Monday, ITV aired an interview with Sunny Kapoor, a shopkeeper who runs a newsagent behind the mosque. He said Mohamed had purchased five mobile phone sim cards “in the last couple of weeks”.

On Thursday, frustrated police officers, who appeared to be playing catch-up, were seen openly attempting to interview Mr Kapoor as he tried to serve customers at his shop. Other officers are reportedly questioning local taxi companies in case Mohamed pre-booked a minicab to escape.

Moreover, on the very day he escaped, Mohamed was cleared of previously tampering with his security tag.

The police have refused to disclose the specific measures that were in place to monitor him; the resources that are being devoted to the manhunt; or how quickly they responded after his tag was cut, which would have automatically alerted them to his absconding. However, a spokesman was keen to deny the BBC’s story that a “special task force” had been set up to find Mohamed. “The systems are already in place, so it’s very much business as usual,” she told me.

Which isn’t immensely encouraging, as the last terror suspect to abscond while subject to a Tpim notice, an associate of Mohamed called Ibrahim Magag — who evaded police when he removed his tag and hailed a black cab in London on Boxing Day 2012 — remains at large.

But the catalogue of bungles does not end with the police. On Monday, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, told Keith Vaz in the House of Commons that the police had Mohamed’s passport in their possession; three days later, she provoked outrage by asking for the parliamentary record to be corrected to say that “I do not have his passport”. It has since emerged that Mohamed may even possess a second British passport.

If this were indeed an airport thriller, the only missing element would be a misanthropic detective with a whisky habit, who would become obsessed with this slippery case and solve it. But it is real life, and as such is extremely concerning.

On Monday, the Commons reacted with incredulity to the Home Secretary’s assurances that “the police and Security Service

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