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 publication of Alice Coleman's "Utopia on Trial" in 1985, the area acquired a reputation as one of the worst places to live in the United Kingdom. This perception was exacerbated when serious rioting erupted later that year. However, following a major redevelopment programme, crime rates dropped dramatically, and the burglary rate was virtually zero percent in 2005. It is one of the most ethnically diverse locations in London; in 2005 its official population of 3,800 included residents of 39 different nationalities. Broadwater Farm was completed in the early 1970s and built using the same Taylor Woodrow-Anglian system of prefabricated