Published: 16 February 2012
by GEORGIA GRAHAM

SIX months after rioting shook Camden Town, the hardest-hit independent shop owner says her business is still just keeping its head above water.

Kitty Lai’s clothes shop, LA1 in Chalk Farm Road, was raided by looters, who smashed down the front door and cleaned out her stock.

“It hasn’t been a case of bouncing back,” Ms Lai said.

“It has really been a case of just keeping your head above water.”

She lost more than £100,000 in stock that night and was only reimbursed by her insurance company just before Christmas.

Ms Lai said: “It was very hard when we reopened.

They did the ground floor first when they came in, and they did the first floor too because some of the people knew the shop and knew that is where the high-end stock
was.

“The rioters were my customers.

I think that it could definitely happen again.

They have got a taste for it.”

Since the chaotic scenes on August 9 last year, Camden police’s 13-strong Operation Withern team has charged 90 people and
is still trawling through CCTV footage for further clues.

Ms Lai said: “It is the first time I’ve claimed on my insurance in 20 years.

I have heard nothing from any of the rioters.

Nothing, nothing.

No apologies from anyone.”

She added: “For the few months after it ­happened, me and my staff were very wary of everyone who came into the shop – did he do it, was he one of them?”