Leroy Cooper | |
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| Born | 1960s  Jamaica |
| Died | May 2023 |
| Occupation | Photographer |
Leroy Alphonse Cooper (born 1960 or 1961; died May 2023) was a Jamaican-born photographer, active in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, whose arrest there in 1981 sparked the Toxteth riots.
Cooper was born in 1960 or 1961 in Jamaica, and emigrated with his parents to Liverpool as a baby. [1]
Cooper's arrest on 3 July 1981, when he was a photography student in Liverpool, sparked the first Toxteth riot, which occurred while he was in detention. [2] [3] [4] [5] He was prosecuted, with the most serious charge being causing grievous bodily harm, [6] and held on remand in HMP Walton [6] and then at Risley for six to eight weeks, then pled guilty to assaulting three police officers causing actual bodily harm, in a trial at Liverpool Crown Court in November 1981. [5] [7] [8] As a result, he spent nine months in borstal. [5] In 2011 he stated that he made the guilty plea to avoid "a sentence of three to five years". [5] He also described how his conviction led to him being "blacklisted" for jobs in Liverpool. [3]
He was also sentenced to two years imprisonment in 1983 for wounding with intent, following further assaults on two police officers, one using a tree branch, and for carrying an offensive weapon, all of which he denied. [9] He was again held in HMP Walton. [1]
After release Cooper continued to study photography. [2] His work, comprising over a quarter of a million images, chiefly documents and the people and culture of Liverpool. [2] [10] He also worked as a performance poet [4] and as a DJ on Toxteth Community Radio, a pirate station, [3] and was a graffiti artist. [4] One of his acts in the latter capacity was to repaint Toxteth street name signs in the red, yellow and green colours of Rastafari. [4]
Cooper featured in the 25 November 1985 episode of the BBC Television current affairs programme Panorama , "Voices From The Ghetto", about Toxteth. [11]
A book, Back In The Day Vol. 1, reproducing 44 of his photographs and one of his paintings was published in 2019. [12] [13]
An exhibition of Cooper's work, "A Secret Life of Liverpool", was held at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool in May 2018. [14] At the time of his death the Museum of Liverpool was hosting an exhibition of his work, "Liverpool Through the Lens". [2] [15]
Cooper's body was found at his home on 12 May 2023. [2] He was 62. [2] The cause of death was not immediately established. [2]
Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 85 councillors, for the city's 64 wards. Following a review by the Local Government Boundary Commission the number of wards increased to 64 at the elections on Thursday 4th May 2023. Three wards elect 3 councillors each, fifteen wards elect 2 councillors each and the remaining 46 wards each elect a single councillor, which brought down the total number of councillors to 85.
His Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) is a part of HM Prison and Probation Service, which is the part of His Majesty's Government charged with managing most of the prisons within England and Wales.
Toxteth is an inner-city area of Liverpool in the historic county of Lancashire and the ceremonial county of Merseyside.
The 1981 Brixton riot, or Brixton uprising, was a series of clashes between mainly black youths and the Metropolitan Police in Brixton, London, between 10 and 12 April 1981. It resulted from racist discrimination against the black community by the mainly white police, especially the police's increased use of stop-and-search in the area, and ongoing tensions resulting from the deaths of 13 black teenagers and young adults in the suspicious New Cross house fire that January. The main riot on 11 April, dubbed "Bloody Saturday" by Time magazine, resulted in 279 injuries to police and 45 injuries to members of the public; over a hundred vehicles were burned, including 56 police vehicles; almost 150 buildings were damaged, thirty of which were burnt out, and many shops were looted. There were 82 arrests. Reports suggested that up to 5,000 people were involved. The Brixton riot was followed by similar riots in July in many other English cities and towns. The Thatcher government commissioned an inquiry, which resulted in the Scarman Report.
HM Prison Manchester is a Category A and B men's prison in Manchester, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It is still commonly referred to as Strangeways, which was its former official name derived from the area in which it is located, until it was rebuilt following a major riot in 1990.
HM Prison Birmingham is a Category B men's prison in the Winson Green area of Birmingham, England, operated by HM Prison and Probation Service.
Malik Al Nasir, born Mark Trevor Watson is a British author and performance poet, born to a Welsh mother and a Guyanese father. Malik is the band leader of Malik & the O.G's. Spurred by an interest in the early black footballer Andrew Watson, he began to research his family ancestry, discovering both enslaved and slave-owners in his lineage.
The Toxteth riots of July 1981 were a civil disturbance in Toxteth, inner-city Liverpool, which arose in part from long-standing tensions between the local police and the black community. They followed the Brixton riot earlier that year and were part of the 1981 England riots.
Bruce Richard Reynolds was an English criminal who masterminded the 1963 Great Train Robbery. At the time it was Britain's largest robbery, netting £2,631,684, equivalent to £58 million today. Reynolds spent five years on the run before being sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment in 1969. He was released in 1978. He also wrote three books and performed with the band Alabama 3, for whom his son, Nick, plays.
Wally Brown, CBE DL was Principal of Liverpool Community College from its creation in 1992 until his retirement in 2008. Born in Toxteth, Liverpool, Brown was previously Head of Community Education in Lambeth, and an adult education manager in Manchester.
Dingle railway station is a disused underground railway station located on the Liverpool Overhead Railway (LOR), at the south end of Park Road, Dingle, Liverpool. It was the only below ground station on the line. Trains accessed the station via a half-mile tunnel, bored from the cliff face at Herculaneum Dock to Park Road. It is the last remaining part of the Overhead railway, with the surface entrance still standing. The former platform and track area were in use as a garage called Roscoe Engineering until 2015.
Riots often occur in reaction to a perceived grievance or out of dissent. Riots may be the outcome of a sporting event, although many riots have occurred due to poor working or living conditions, government oppression, conflicts between races or religions.
HM Prison Hollesley Bay, known locally as Hollesley Bay Colony or simply The Colony, is a Category D men's prison and Young Offender Institution, located in the village of Hollesley, about 8 miles (13 km) from the town of Woodbridge in Suffolk, England. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
HM Prison Liverpool is a category B local men's prison in Walton, Liverpool, England. It is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
HM Prison Littlehey is a Category C male prison in the village of Perry near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, England. Littlehey Prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. The Prison only holds those that have been convicted of a sexual offence.
In April and July 1981, there were riots in several cities and towns in England. The riots mainly involved black English youth clashing with police. They were caused by tension between black people and the police, especially perceived racist discrimination against black people through increased use of stop-and-search, and were also fuelled by inner city deprivation. The most serious riots were the April Brixton riots in London, followed in July by the Toxteth riots in Liverpool, the Handsworth riots in Birmingham, the Chapeltown riots in Leeds, and the Moss Side riots in Manchester. There were also a series of less serious riots in other towns and cities. As a result of the riots, the government commissioned the Scarman Report.
HM Prison Rochester is a male Young Offenders Institution, founded in 1874, and located in the Borstal area of Rochester in Kent, England. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service, and is located next to HMP Cookham Wood.
HM Prison Hewell is a multiple security category men's prison in the village of Tardebigge in Worcestershire, England. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Michael Showers is a British convicted drug trafficker from Liverpool.
Liverpool-born Blacks are people of Black African ancestry born in the city of Liverpool. Liverpool has the United Kingdom's oldest and longest established black community, going back several generations. Liverpool's black community is also unusual among those in the United Kingdom, as the Liverpool-born Black British community often constitute a category distinct from later African and Afro-Caribbean migrants.
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