Do you feel safe in London?

[Led9519]

Been here 15 years and i’m not sure I feel that safe anymore. We’re in zone 4 suburbia pretty much but Sabina Nessa, Sarah everard, Zara Aleena are all recent and it’s awful.
Then in our town there have been a few stabbings which seems par for the course… it’s not even that rough here. Went to feed the squirrels today and there was a 40 year old and group of kids smoking weed which was odd, my daughter then asked ‘have the baddies gone.’
Was speaking to my female friends about the woods/trails nearby and if they’d walk/run in there alone, the answer was no, not even in the day.
I’m sure statistically it’s just as safe as anywhere really but it’s a shame!

Zone 6 is practically rural as far as MN is concerned, though - takes far too long to get into the centre 😁. I live in zone 5, have lived in London since I was 14 and have no issues with my safety. There are places I wouldn't walk around at night but then any city has those.

Definitely felt safer than when i've been in Manchester or Liverpool for example. Felt especially unsafe walking around in surburbs and the centre there, especially in the evening, just has an underlying feel i can't put my finger on.

Manchester and Nottingham have always been more dangerous and had higher crime rates than London. London is a very safe city in the UK.

Be interesting to know the gender split.

I’d feel intimidated walking through a group of older teen lads and older men anywhere…. smoking or not. Just so happens it was at a London park. Good on you if you haven’t been cat called, shouted at or followed before but I have!

I think personally just don’t know if I do feel that safe here or if I would feel DD’s were safe out and about.

My other thread is about relocating and I am thinking about it. Safety for my daughters being one aspect. I’ve never been worried in central London but here in the suburbs I find it more of a worry because there aren’t necessarily people around all the time. It’s not my main reason but is a factor. My borough stats bear out it being slightly less safe here for violent crime. Though I wonder how much is unreported. I was harassed on the tube one and couldn’t be bothered to report it!

Good on you if you haven’t been cat called, shouted at or followed before but I have!

Of course I have been. Many times. Do you think this only happens in London?

Irrespective the truth is that it's men, and young men, who are at most risk of crime. From other men.

That's universal. It doesn't matter where you live.

Way to misunderstand me, I said myself I’d feel intimidated walking through a group of lads like that anywhere? It’s in response to posters asking me why I felt scared walking through a group of lads smoking weed.
Great if others wouldn’t feel scared but I did! I live in London so it happened here I would also feel scared walking through a group like that in Cheshire. I think most women might.

Also yes it’s interesting how the news doesn’t reflect the actual risk. That male on male violence is highest… and I think also the risk of homicide is highest for a baby aged 0-1 which is bloody depressing.

“In England and Wales children under one year of age are at four times greater risk of becoming victims of homicide than either older children or the general population.”

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8264367/

I worked in criminal law for years. The real truth was that the most dangerous place for women was their own home.

That has never changed in 50 years. Men are not a risk to women in the same way in the street. Statistically, the home is the most dangerous place for a woman and her children, assuming a man lives with them.

I've lived her nearly 26 years and for myself, I am wary but I feel fairly safe. I worry for my teenage DD though, but that's partly me being an anxious parent. I arm her with information on how to keep herself safe, but after that, what can you do.?

I don't think women are any more or less safe than at any other time but these horrible crimes have a wider audience now and it's impossible not to be aware of it.

I'd like to think Rowley has good intentions to help protect minorities and women but I fear he's got an uphill battle.

I've lived in London for over 30 years and never felt unsafe. Seen a few unpleasant things and hastily moved away but haven't been personally threatened. I think if you're sensible and aware of possible dangers (but not in a paranoid way), then the risks are fewer. My dd got into an unpleasant situation but it was something she could have avoided with hindsight, and hopefully will now she has had the experience.

When younger I was robbed several times (pickpocketed, car broken into). I realised what I had done wrong (e.g. let my bag swing behind me on an escalator) and have been very aware ever since of what precautions to take. Never happened again.

Alone at night I stick to well-lit streets where other people are walking.

You sound like you are over estimating the risk of the things that could happen. That's anxiety related as the risks are often tiny. Eg stabbings usually take place between people who know each other, ditto rapes. So the risk to you is minimal. Just being alive exposes us to risks - we shouldn't live in fear.

Yes I live in SE London and went for a run at 11pm last night because I feel very safe.

Out of interest are you a man or a woman?

Not particularly safe. I have seen people's phones being snatched, my house has been burgled, car broken into. And I live in one of the most expensive boroughs. So I wouldn't say it's safe, no.

Yes, I feel safe. However I'd worry if I had teenage sons, as it seems they're more likely to be victims of knife crime than any other group.

But as you don't hear much about middle aged women getting randomly stabbed in my area I feel OK. (Live in Wood Green and work in Hackney. )

I want to say I felt fine in the 14 years I lived in London, but I didn't. Ever.

Lived in a very nice part (Crouch End) prior to having kids and felt safe there, but anywhere outside that small area wasn't the sort of place I'd go walking alone after dark.

When we had our DC we moved East, as most do, for more space, to Walthamstow and even though it has its charms and, those that are into it, a lovely community spirit, nothing about it was actually safe. The year before we left there was an acid attack metres away from our home, and a child shot outside our local shop. The local park always smelt of weed. I would come from from my night course and walk past people openly dealing on my street.

We couldn't afford to stay in the end, which was a blessing in disguise. DH and I both agree we should've moved way out way before we did. We just felt that if we left London we would be unplugged from all the things that mattered to us. That turned out to be nonsense.

Woman in my 30s.

I'm sensible about the routes I take (don't cross any badly lit railway footbridges later at night and wouldn't run in a park after 5.30 at the moment until it gets lighter) but on the whole I live my life not being worried about what might happen.

Yeah as I said above, this is very, very common for people who didn't grow up in London and who moved here in their 20s. Those people almost all realise that they don't want to/don't know how to raise their children here, and move out again. That's fine, it's a different sort of place for you than it is for those of us who have parents, grandparents etc who lived all their lives here.

I would never want to be away from all the things that make London special to me, and that includes family and community connections and ethnic/national diversity, as well as the more obvious culture, history, stuff going on, etc.

Drug dealing and knife crime happens all over the UK, apart from maybe in the deep countryside, and I am genuinely not sure that I could psychologically survive more than a couple of weeks there.

I feel the same too

Only I had to leave London and move far away from family and everything I knew and loved a few years ago at the age of 40, we just couldn’t afford it anymore.

It’s been bloody horrible and I’ve never experienced so much crime, antisocial behaviour, racism and just general awfulness as I have in the last few years living where I do now.

If I meet anyone and they clock my accent, 9 times out of 10 they will say, “oh, London. I bet that was rough” and I just want to reply, “are you mental! Look at this dump!” but I don’t. Mainly because the people round here would punch me if I did.

Parts of London used to be very rough. But it has totally changed in 30 years. Not sure that I like all the changes but seriously, quite a lot safer than it used to be for women. Soho and Kings Cross have completely changed for example.

I feel safer in busy parts of London as there are plenty of people round. I don't feel so safe in quieter areas.

I feel like that wherever I am, not just London.

I've always felt safer walking down a busy London street than down a country lane.

As sad as it is, I would never walk around a quiet park on my own. Look what happened to Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common over thirty years ago.

Sadly, I don’t think it seems like location, time of day, or whether the area is quiet or busy actually makes a huge amount of difference if somebody is intent on harming you. Sarah Everard was kidnapped walking along the South Circular, a major trunk road, in the relatively early evening. Lin and Meghan Russell were killed on a pleasant village road on a sunny summer afternoon. Then there’s Angel Lynn who was dragged into a van on the A6 with cameras everywhere. The number of kidnappings, murders and rapes associated with desolate areas or parks actually feels pretty small.