They followed a long period of ethnic tensions and attacks in Oldham, occurring particularly between groups of the local white and South Asian communities.
The most violent rioting occurred in the Glodwick area of the town, a multi-ethnic district of Oldham and home to a large community of British Pakistanis.
They were highly violent and led to the use of petrol bombs, bricks, bottles and other such projectiles by up to five-hundred Asian youths as they battled against lines of riot police.
Asians - including those of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian heritage - made up 11% of Oldham's population, but constituted around 2% of the workforce at the local council, the town's biggest employer at the time.
[citation needed] Just weeks after the riots, the then Deputy-Mayor of Oldham, Riaz Ahmad, became a victim of arson when someone threw a petrol bomb at his house in Chadderton, setting it ablaze.
Because of this, after World War II ended, workers from the British Commonwealth were encouraged to migrate to Oldham, amongst other similarly industrialised English towns, to fill the shortfall of indigenous employees, and thus benefit from increased economic opportunity, albeit from tough unsociable employment regimes in a distinctly foreign land.
However, due to the comparatively poor circumstances with which they arrived in Britain, these migrants settled in concentrated neighborhoods, inhabiting the poorest of Oldham's then crumbling Victorian residential areas - most of which have since been redeveloped.
As a prosperous thriving centre of the industrial revolution, Oldham had always been a town attracting migrants (from wider-England, Scotland, Ireland, and following the world wars, Poland and Ukraine).
However, the South Asian communities which settled remained culturally very distinct from the local population, in dress, language, religion, customs and, pertinently, in ethnicity/colour, much more so than previous migrant groups.
These factors contributed heavily to the foundations of Oldham's concentrated and sizeable Asian communities, which make up around 12% of the Borough's population[needs update?
[12][13] These figures alarmed both Asian and white communities, and led to the British National Party announcing it would contest the forthcoming general election, with its leader Nick Griffin to stand as a candidate for the constituency of Oldham West and Royton.
[11] The Ritchie Report largely blamed deep-rooted segregation, which authorities had failed to address for generations, as the cause of the Oldham Riots and its prior and subsequent inter-ethnic problems.
The Team considered all of the disturbances in northern English towns, and created the concept of 'parallel lives' to describe the deep-seated segregation in the areas reviewed.
[21] It was commissioned by Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council to independently review the town's progress in its efforts to achieve racial harmony and community cohesion.
The report praised the council and town for its considerable progress and efforts, but said much more needed to be achieved, given Oldham's projected increase in ethnic diversity in the decades ahead.
[22] The report broadly had three messages: In interviews with both the Oldham Evening Chronicle and BBC Radio, Cantle accused some community leaders of hindering progress because they were worried about losing their political influence.