‘That’s my car, you fascist thugs’: far-right rampage engulfs Middlesbrough

Incredibly, it began with a two-minute silence for the victims of the Southport knife attack.

What followed was angry, often racist and mindless violence during which front windows of homes were smashed in, cars torched, residents terrified and police repeatedly attacked with missiles.

Related: Rioters try to torch Rotherham asylum seeker hotel amid far-right violence

Middlesbrough resembled a battle zone on Sunday afternoon, the latest place to be chosen as a venue for far-right led violence.

About 300 people gathered at Middlesbrough’s cenotaph at the gates to Albert Park at 2pm. They had been encouraged to turn up by posts on social media. A striking number were men and women in their 50s and 60s.

“We’re fucking angry,” said one woman in her 60s. “I know we’re only plebs from a poor town.”

Another shouted: “This is our way of life that’s at stake.”

One elderly couple took time to go to admire the Brian Clough statue in the park before returning to find somewhere to sit.

But shortly before the crowd set off, a large group of younger masked men walked up to the cenotaph. Things began to feel more sinister and scary.

A man in a blue T-shirt, an organiser, couldn’t get his megaphone to work so yelled instead that it was a protest not about race or religion but about the children who were killed.

By the end, they seemed like hollow words.

The gathered people walked down Linthorpe Road into the city centre. Almost every business along the road had closed early and put the shutters down. A Wetherspoons stayed open but wasn’t letting anyone in.

Police stopped marchers from going down terraced streets off the main road which led to angry confrontations; furious, red-faced men bellowing at officers that their civil rights were being ignored.

Two of the streets had mosques on or near them, a reason marchers wanted to go down them. The police kept shouting “keep moving, keep moving” as the march made its way into the town centre.

It was starting to get ugly. There were racist chants. Windows were smashed, including one which, with grim irony, had a sign on it: “Middlesbrough – moving forward.”

A young girl, probably 12, was on the march with her mother and siblings. She was red-faced and tearful. “I don’t like it mam, I want to go home.”

The marchers headed back towards the cenotaph, this time snaking through terraced streets to the west of Linthorpe Road. Several homes of working-class people had their front windows smashed for no discernible reason.

At least two parked taxis had all their windows broken. Other parked cars were chosen randomly to have their windscreen smashed. One car owner bravely and furiously confronted them: “That’s my car,” she shouted. “You fascist thugs!”

Children used bricks and stones to smash windows of a new development of affordable homes.

The main body of the march made its way back to the cenotaph where there was a standoff with riot police with shields. People threw bricks, bottles and metal bars. At one point burning wheelie bins were pushed towards them.

It was proving impossible to keep everyone in one place. As police dealt with rioters at the cenotaph a large group of dozens of masked children cycled and ran away from a car they had overturned and set on fire in Borough Road. Another car was later torched on Parliament Road.

The police and crime commissioner for Northumbria, Susan Dungworth, has expressed fears that police will be exhausted if they have to keep on dealing with such protests in the coming weeks. When it was possible for officers to take a break, to chat amongst themselves, many looked exhausted. And haunted.

For Cleveland police this is the second time in a week they have had to deal with riots after a night of disorder in Hartlepool on Wednesday .

The force said nine arrests had been made on Sunday and urged people to avoid the area. By 4.30pm the crowds had largely dispersed from the cenotaph but no one was betting that might be the end of it. An hour later Middlesbrough still echoed to sirens and the constant thrum of a police helicopter overhead.