Crimestoppers UK and learnt about the Crimestoppers scheme, he saw it as a good opportunity to get the community involved in crime-fighting. Other areas around the UK also learned of Crimestoppers and took it up around this time but there was no national, co-ordinated approach. In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during the riots at the Broadwater Farm Estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward. Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft, KCMG and Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers), a businessman, offered to provide the police
Broadwater Farm the Department of the Environment concluded that the estate was of such poor quality that the only solution was demolition. While residents objected to conditions, some also opposed the demolition plan. Relations between the community and the local authority became increasingly confrontational. A process of redevelopment began in 1981, but it was hampered by a lack of funds and an increasingly negative public perception of the area. By the time that Alice Coleman's critique of 1960s planned housing, "Utopia on Trial" (1985), was published, the estate was regarded as being representative of unsuccessful large-scale social housing projects. When a major