“Hackney Heroine” Pauline Pearce has organised a meeting this Sunday to discuss what still needs to be done two years on after the riots.
The grandmother, nicknamed Lady P, became an internet sensation in 2011 after taking on rioting youths in Clarence Road with a walking stick, after disturbances spread south from Tottenham following the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by armed police.
She told them they were “looters without a cause” and said it made her ashamed to come from Hackney.
Ms Pearce is concerned that since then not enough has been done to improve things in the borough, particularly regarding the police policy of Stop and Search and gangs, and that the coalition government’s benefit cuts could make things worse.
The organisation she established, Unity in the Community is organising a discussion Sunday from 1pm to 5pm at St John in Hackney Church, in Lower Clapton Road.
Invited speakers include a former general secretary of the National Black Police Association.
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