Clash of words over violence in race march: Police chief blames organisers of anti-racist demonstration for providing 'opportunity for violence'. Alex Renton reports

THE police and Unity, the group of anti-racist organisations that organised Saturday's march against the British National Party in south-east London, yesterday accused each other of hypocrisy and hidden agendas during Saturday's march.

Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the organisers had expected the violence and 'provided the opportunity for it to happen'.

But Julie Waterson, the injured chief steward, said that Mr Condon had failed to reply to her requests for a meeting to discuss how the march should be organised, in spite of his publicly expressed fears of violence, and that his officers 'waded in without any sort of provocation'.

What is not in dispute is that the riot started when demonstrators tried to leave the agreed route and turn down Upper Wickham Lane towards the headquarters of the BNP. The official route of the march, enforced by the police under the Public Order Act, sent demonstrators to the left, up a hill, to a final rally half a mile away at Clam Field recreation ground.

But when the head of the march arrived at the junction, protesters stopped, appparently with the agreement of stewards, to argue with police to be let through.

Commander Hugh Blenkin, the officer in charge, said the violence appeared to start at that point after a speech by Leon Greenman, a survivor of the Holocaust, 50 yards before the junction. He said he had deliberately placed uniformed constables at the junction, rather than riot police, to avoid confrontation. Barriers were not erected, as they could have been used as missiles.

The impasse at the junction led to protesters, on the advice of stewards, sitting down with linked arms. One demonstrator said that he had heard a steward telling people to 'Link arms and move to the right' - through the police lines and towards the BNP headquarters.

Yesterday, Ms Waterson and other stewards insisted that they had never intended to leave the official route of the march. But one steward said that a meeting of the 550 stewards before the march had agreed that a two-minute protest would be made at the junction.

On Saturday Paul Heron, national organiser of Youth Against Racism in Europe, told the Press Association: 'We want and intend to march past the BNP HQ.' He repeated yesterday that the intention had always been to attempt to reach the headquarters. 'The BNP headquarters is a war machine and a centre of race hatred,' he said.

Once the march had halted, riot squads and mounted police moved in. The organisers said snatch squads entered the crowd while the possibility of a delegation to go to the BNP HQ was still being discussed. The police say they took no action until missiles were thrown.

Hand-to-hand fighting and the throwing of bricks, sticks and two smoke bombs followed. Stewards found and handed to police six petrol bombs; none were used. The police replied with repeated charges on foot and horseback.

Meanwhile most marchers were kept stationary further back for up to two hours, with no method of escape except by jumping the cemetery wall. One marcher, Magnus Mills, said yesterday that police had manipulated the peaceful members of the crowd. 'They were deliberately trying to frighten us.'

He added that, although stuck far back, at least one object was thrown from beside him. Commander Blenkin said: 'A lot of the demonstrators were injured by missiles thrown from behind them.'

One Anti-Nazi League member, Adrian Walter, said he had been knocked out twice by police batons as he tried to help injured demonstrators in the park. The march organisers yesterday accused the police of needlessly making a mounted charge at protesters as they left the junction, moving up towards Clam Field. But police and local residents say that missiles were still being thrown from the crowd as it left the scene.

Commander Blenkin said that of 15,000 marchers, perhaps 2,000 were involved in the violence. He rejected the suggestion that the march could have been allowed past the BNP headquarters: 'If this sort of violence had happened in those closely built streets, there would have been an enormous amount of damage done to property.'

Paul Holborow, of the steering committee of the Anti-Nazi League, promised more marches: 'We will continue until the BNP HQ is removed.'

(Photograph and map omitted)