House link to death that sparked riot

Number 16 Willan Road, now the subject of the police excavation, was once occupied by Marcia Maragh, a close friend of Cynthia Jarrett whose death sparked the Broadwater Farm riots.

Miss Maragh was the sole occupier of the Sixties terrace house between 1984 and 1989.

She was one of the first people on the scene when police raided the Jarrett home nearby and she found Mrs Jarrett unconscious in the hall.

Miss Maragh ran from the house to call an ambulance and flagged down a passing police car.

Mrs Jarrett, 49, collapsed and died of a heart attack after four policeman burst into her house in Thorpe Road, Tottenham. They had arrested her son Floyd for assault after officers had stopped his car and questioned him about an out-of-date tax disc. The next day rioting broke out on the Broadwater Farm Estate.

An inquest jury later decided Mrs Jarrett had died accidentally from heart failure during the police search of her house. She had suffered from a heart condition.

The inquest heard that Mrs Jarrett was pushed by one of the officers during the search.

Today police carried thermal-imaging and ground-penetrating radar equipment into the small garden to begin their search for anything that might be buried there.