This is a message from the Metropolitan Police Service:

Update For Businesses

> 11th August 2011 <

Last night we saw a second night where levels of disorder were significantly lower and the large numbers of officers on the streets and robust response to any emerging issues prevented any significant disorder.

We will continue with similar numbers of officers on the streets of London tonight to ensure that we maintain law and order. This will be reviewed on a daily basis.  

The Metropolitan Police Service has now arrested a total of 888 people in connection with violence, disorder and looting and recovered a variety of stolen goods including TV’s and mobiles.

So far 371 people have been charged for a range of offences and between 18:00hrs on Wednesday 10 August to 06.00 on Thursday 11 August, 127 arrests have been made across London, again for various offences.

We are ensuring that suspects are dealt with quickly leading to 95 prisoners who will have been processed through courts overnight (240 in total have been processed to date). Significant numbers of these have been remanded in custody to appear at Crown Court. Approximately 50% were juveniles.  

 The crime investigation is extensive. There have been 550 crimes scenes, of which 140 remain cordoned to allow for forensic and other investigation.  

We’d like to thank the many members of our local communities and businesses who have been providing information to us about suspected looters and those involved in the violence.

We urge communities to continue helping us, giving any information on the identities of the wanted people whose CCTV images we have released. As a result of the information we have received to date we have been able to make arrests.

Those involved in criminality should be under no illusion that we will pursue them. We have been making arrests all evening and have a team working during the night examining CCTV images. We will follow up evidence in the coming days in order to bring anyone else responsible for criminal acts to justice. 

We would urge communities and the business community to join us in condemning the actions of this violent minority and report any information about those responsible to police. Any information can be passed anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

For those of you in the business community who are concerned about travel arrangements this morning, the latest information can be gained from the TfL website.