IN part three of our five-day analysis of how far Burnley has come since the riots 10 years ago, we spoke to community leaders about their memories and hears what they did in the immediate aftermath.

THE Bishop of Burnley had been warned something serious had erupted in his new domain.

But little could have prepared him for rows and rows of riot police positioned above the M65 as he drove into town the day after trouble began.

“There were a number of police in full riot gear, looking like something out of the Empire Strikes Back and I couldn’t help thinking - ‘Is this really the town I’m living in?’, said the Right Rev John Goddard, who had only held the position for six months.

Perhaps it was then that the enormity of the challenge facing community leaders hit home, as they later picked through the wreckage of three nights of violence.

Religious leaders, Christian and Muslim, were adamant that they had to present a united front in the immediate aftermath.

Bishop John said: “I went down to the area and it was very tense.

"The other thing that you noticed was that there were a number of people coming in to support the protagonists.

“There were families from Bradford and others from the other side of the fence, intent on stirring things up.

“I was invited by the police to go to their command post and was briefed about the situation.

"They went to a considerable effort to explain, carefully and wisely I thought, the facts.

“It was very fortunate that things had not got worse - I was shown a whole row of petrol bombs which had been found but not used.”

The bishop called an immediate crisis meeting with his Catholic and Methodist counterparts, and Muslim leaders.

Fairly soon a pact had been drawn up, whereby if there was any violence demonstrated towards religious buildings or individuals, faith leaders would present a united front in condemnation.

Muhammad Sajid ul Qadri, Chief Imam of Burnley’s central mosque in Abel Street, said: “After the riots I can remember we had meetings at the residences of the religious leaders.

“There was one in my home and there were others too. We discussed the common features between Christianity and Islam.”

The then-Burnley MP Peter Pike had warned the authorities dissention could be brewing, especially after the British National Party secured five per cent of the vote in the May elections.

Mr Pike’s family roots lie in the same Burnley streets affected by the riots and he recalls how much of the housing in Daneshouse should have been torn down as long ago as the 1970s.

He added: “I said during the election campaign that there was a problem simmering and I had said that to the police.

“I think the presence of the BNP didn’t help. That was the first time that they had any significant polling. They got around five per cent, from a totally insignificant vote.

"On the Sunday it was a glorious summer’s day and I had been in Wales, with my daughter, because it was her birthday.

“When I came back there were police stopping people from coming into the town and you found that a number of sections had been sealed off.”

Within hours he was heading to Parliament to lodge an emergency question with the Speaker of the House of Commons, but told the authorities he would be willing to return to Lancashire immediately if necessary.

Mr Pike added: “I have always said that it was disturbances and not any worse than that.

"On the whole I think the police did a good job of managing what was a very difficult situation.

“It was unfortunate that because it was a summer’s day and there were a lot of people outside the pubs drinking.”

The former MP, who stood down in 2005, also remembered how, before his parliamentary career, he worked at Mullard’s in a ‘mixed’ workforce.

He added: “The difficulty is with the change in employment because the big factories and mills closed, where you used to get integration between different communities.”

Mr Pike’s main fear, after the demise of the housing market regeneration programme, is that housing standards could slip still further.

Former councillor Rafique Malik was deputy mayor in 2001 and chairman of the borough’s housing committee. His son Shahid, later Dewsbury MP, was famously injured in the riots.

Mr Malik said: “There were reports of isolated incidents and I still believe that all of it could have been avoided with better intelligence.

“Although people could sense that things were not quite right nobody expected that it would blow up.”

Several calls from taxi drivers later, he could sense the situation escalating hour by hour.

“Then there were rumours - and I never did find the woman who was supposed to have been involved - that a Pakistani lady had her burka snatched in the town centre and that created tensions,” he said.

And there was speculation BNP supporters were on their way to ‘smash things up’.

"There was definitely proof of the flames of hatred being fanned,” added Mr Malik.

"I was trying to argue with young Asian men that they should go home and that the police were capable of looking after us.

"But they did not listen and they said they would not cause any problems or trouble.

"They wanted to remain and be on the look-out for any attacks.”

The ingredients for division were there before the riots.

Just £94,000 was available to spend on housing renewal in Burnley in 2001 and Mr Malik was only too aware of the 3-4,000 empty or boarded-up homes borough-wide.

Only the later arrival of the Elevate housing renewal programme helped to redress the balance.

The bonds forged in the hours and days after the disturbances provided the foundations for the Building Bridges Burnley organisation, which is now recognised internationally for its reconciliation and cohesion work.

Interfaith visits have been arranged to the House of Parliament, the Holy Land and Rome in recent years, as the dialogue continues between various communities.

Bishop John added: “There was a sense that a lot of people recognised that there were differences, but were concerned that this should have happened when we had an Asian mayor.

“I think that should have shown the way towards unity and integration but instead it was just cracking open.

“The right-wing exploited the situation, I would say, and stoked the fires of the indigenous community to further their own racist agenda.

“We could have been in a very nasty situation. There was no loss of life and the fact that the police showed me all those milk bottles, that could have been used as petrol bombs, we could have been in a crisis situation.”