Qualla: Murder of Keith Blakelock

Murder of Keith Blakelock: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Attribution: Jim Moody, CC BY-SA 4.0. Keith Henry Blakelock was forty years old, a home beat officer in Muswell Hill, married to Elizabeth, father to three boys named Mark, Kevin and Lee. He had joined the Metropolitan Police on 14 November 1980, late by the standards of his service - he was thirty-five when he signed on - and he worked the kind of beat where the constable's name is known on every street. On the night of 6 October 1985 he was sent with eleven other officers in Serial 502 to protect the firefighters working through the second night of a riot on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham. He stumbled. A crowd closed in. By the time his colleagues fought their way back to him, he had been struck more than forty times with machetes or similar weapons, and a six-inch knife had been driven into his neck up to the hilt. He was the first British police officer killed in a riot since 1833.

Image: Attribution: Jim Moody | CC BY-SA 4.0

Murder of Keith Blakelock: Broadwater Farm

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Iridescenti, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Broadwater Farm estate, built between 1967 and 1973 in the Borough of Haringey, was a product of the post-war push to clear London's slums and rehouse the displaced in modern high-rise blocks. It consisted of 1,063 flats in twelve blocks raised on stilts, linked by first-floo...

Image: Iridescenti | CC BY-SA 3.0

Murder of Keith Blakelock: Cynthia Jarrett

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eden, Janine and Jim from New York City, CC BY 2.0. On Saturday 5 October 1985, police stopped a young black man called Floyd Jarrett on a vague suspicion that his vehicle's tax disc was wrong. The suspicion was groundless; the deeper suspicion that the car was stolen also turned out to be groundless. Several hours later, officers...

Image: Eden, Janine and Jim from New York City | CC BY 2.0

Murder of Keith Blakelock: The Riot

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Philafrenzy, CC BY-SA 4.0. The journalist David Rose later described Cynthia Jarrett's death as 'not just a spark but a flamethrower aimed at a powder keg.' Crowds began gathering outside Tottenham police station before dawn on Sunday 6 October; the Jarrett family appealed for calm, and the immediate crowd...

Image: Philafrenzy | CC BY-SA 4.0

Murder of Keith Blakelock: The Tottenham Three

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CivilibNewsTV, CC BY 3.0. Detectives faced enormous pressure to find Blakelock's killers and very little evidence. The crime scene had been impossible to secure for hours. In the months that followed, 359 people were arrested, most interviewed without lawyers. Three adults - Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip ...

Image: CivilibNewsTV | CC BY 3.0

Murder of Keith Blakelock: What Remains

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Philafrenzy, CC BY-SA 4.0. PC Blakelock and the other constables of Serial 502 received the Queen's Gallantry Medal in 1988. His son Lee, who was eight when his father died, joined Durham Constabulary in 2000. Keith Blakelock is buried in East Finchley Cemetery. Broadwater Farm survived its near-demolition...

Image: Philafrenzy | CC BY-SA 4.0