The current wave of looting, arson and attacks on the Police and emergency services in the capital and other major cities have caused the Prime Minister to warn those involved that they will be found and brought before the courts, and that Police action to restore law and order will be robust.

The phrase that comes to mind is “reading the riot act”. This act was enacted in 1714 to prevent “tumults and riotous assemblies” and for the more “speedy and effectual” punishment of offenders. If more than 12 persons gathered in a riotous assembly, a magistrate could read the proclamation, and in respect of those that did not obey and go home or to work after an hour had elapsed, force could be used to disperse them. The act indemnified the forces of law and order in putting down the riot from the consequences of their actions. It was an offence punishable by death to cause serious damage to houses in the course of a riot.

One notorious use of the Riot Act was in Manchester in 1819, when the mounted hussars and militia were called in, and with sabres drawn they charged the crowd, with 15 dead and hundreds more injured. It was called the Peterloo Massacre, as it took place in St Peter’s Field, and after the battle of Waterloo in 1815. A mural in the Free Trade Hall commemorated it in graphic terms, and Sir Malcolm Arnold wrote his Peterloo Overture – you can hear the peace before the storm and the cavalry approaching and feel the tension heightening.

The act provided for the payment by the general inhabitants of the town of damages to anybody suffering losses, and by the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 the obligation to pay damages fell to be paid from the Police rate by local councils, or in the case of London, the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police.

The death penalty for connected offences was changed to transportation in 1837, the act fell into disuse, the last proclamation under it being in 1929 and it was repealed in 1973. While the Riot (Damages) Act still exists, the office of the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police was abolished in 2000 on the creation of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Claims must be made to the local Police authority within 14 days – insurers should be notified immediately.

Now the phrase has come to mean to give someone a good telling off.