Twenty-one people were arrested after sporadic overnight incidents in Oldham, northern England, but a huge police presence prevented a repeat of the weekend's rioting between whites and Asians, officials said today.
Police said they had arrested 18 white youths and three Asians on mainly public order offences in a night of relative quiet. The evening has been more vandalism than violence, a police spokesman told reporters. "We had an incident where three vehicles and a business on the same road suffered fire damage, but no major injuries have been reported."
Police had stepped up security yesterday evening in the industrial town near Manchester after a weekend in which white and mainly Bangladeshi and Pakistani youths battled each other and police with stones and petrol bombs in the worst racial clashes in Britain for years.
At least 30 people were injured and 37 arrested during the riots.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, with elections looming on June 7th, has backed the heavy police effort to contain the trouble and insisted the violence was not typical of race relations in Britain.