Care Images encompasses all areas of care and community in the UK, and dare I say, warts and all. We’re not afraid to shy away from more negative issues – clients give positive feedback on our realistic images portraying violence and issues of troubled children and young people. We were shocked and dismayed by the horrific events this week and we commissioned photo-journalist Julio Etchart to attend the scenes of devastation in Tottenham and Hackney. His work is indeed a mirror on our troubled world.

The events of the week have left a terrible scar on our community. The poor Malaysian student, already dripping with blood after having his jaw broken by a mindless thug, then being comforted by another hoodlum while yet another looter emptied the student’s bag of whatever remained. The poor father having to bury a son; the pensioner beaten by a gang of hoodlums; the parents running terrified from a burning building carrying their baby to safety.

Burning issue: street scene from Hackney

A once proud nation who defied Hitler’s Nazi thugs was left powerless by social media columns of thugs of all races, creeds, ages and it seems lifestyles (would you employ the graphic designer or classroom assistant caught extending their white goods range?) And the same old same old on radio and TV as hang ‘em Tories sparred with tree-hugging criminologists as to where the blame lay, and to boot, a revolting new word ‘criminality’ entered the lexicon. If it makes you feel better we can employ water cannons, the military, even lock them up in Wembley Stadium as one gentleman suggested on a phone-in, (I think The Emirates is a better option, at least it will give those poor Arsenal fans something to get excited about). We can shoot them, hang them and bring back the birch. We can ‘understand’ them, have a group hug with them, maybe send them on a re-birthing weekend before enforcing them to join a ‘book group’ and sign a contract to eat organic rice cakes until they mend their ways.

Or we can recognise that we are ostensibly at war with our own youth and find a long-term uneasy truce as we did in Ireland to relative success since the Good Friday Agreement. The ferocity of the hatred and venom among the perpetrators of the disgraceful mob violence tell me that this gulf in understanding cannot be mended for at least a generation. And that, along with the young people who have lost their lives and the older people fighting for theirs following the mayhem, is the real tragedy.

And when the government, along with the economic and chattering classes come to make this truce with the thugs, they might like to consider how they have been looting from us in a less violent but similarly smug way. Are the scum who looted our banks and then stuck two fingers up at us after we bailed them out before walking off with millions more in bonuses a better class of thug? What about the MPs who were lining up to pull the electric lever on all the hoodies this week? Presumably these are different MPs to those who thought it perfectly acceptable to steal hundreds of thousands of pounds on porn, duck ponds and London love nests under the hoods of expenses.

Broken Britain, yes. The rioters have no moral compass; they are a disgrace and I’m angry with them. But please don’t tell me that the behaviour of looters in suits is a more acceptable style of a robbin hood.