FORMER Chronicle photographer Lee Thompson has been covering the riots for a national newspaper with some of his pictures going around the globe.

Lee, 29, who hails from Vicars Cross, Chester, witnessed arguments breaking out between local youths and shopkeepers from the balcony of his Brixton flat on Monday night.

Then he learned from TV news about public disorder down the road at Clapham Junction so he and his flat-mate, a photographer for Associated Press, headed there in a car.

“It was about an hour and a half before the police arrived and 500 kids were smashing every shop, literally every shop and stole everything.

“I saw a kid no older than nine-years-old carrying out loads of DVD players, one bloke had about 10 sat navs in his hands. “Probably the most shocking was seeing girls with literally five handbags on each arm.

“A lot of it was organised. There were kids collecting stuff in suitcases who were then taking it to a bloke in a Range Rover around the corner.”

Lee, a former Christleton High School pupil, saw the ‘sweetest looking’ 14-year-old girl kick down the door of Clinton Cards who then quickly covered her face on realising she had been caught on CCTV camera.

Taking photographs was hazardous as the mob assumed the pictures could be used as evidence against them.

He saw two men grab a camera from an 18-year-old female photographer and then kick her in the shins.

Lee, who covered the uprising in Egypt’s Tahrir Square earlier this year, said both situations were dangerous but he felt safer in London because it is familiar to him.

When police arrived they were fire-bombed and had bricks thrown at them. By this time, the whole area was out of control and by 1am shops and homes were ablaze.