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 riot in a riot in Britain. At 13:00 hrs on 5 October 1985, a young black man, Floyd Jarrett, who lived about a mile from the Farm, was arrested by police, having been stopped in a vehicle with an allegedly suspicious car tax disc. He was taken to nearby Tottenham police station and charged with theft and assault (he was later acquitted of both charges). Five and a half hours later, D.C. Randle and three other officers decided to search his mother's home, also close by. Forty-nine-year-old Mrs Jarret immediately collapsed and died from a heart attack during disputed circumstances. During