Disorder in Leeds

[OrangeFurever]

Anyone watching the public disorder in Leeds? Bloody disgusting behaviour. Animals. AIBU to wish police had so many more resources to bring consequences to these absolute excuses for humanity?

@OlgaBracley Do you live in Harehills or East Leed? If so I look forward update on your understanding of local politics and management of community resources and relations in a city that has seen funding cut to the bone over the last decade. Also please full us in on your better understanding of community policing.

There were several social media posts showing respected local youth workers, community leaders and a local concillor mediating to end the disruption WHICH THEY DID. However in this era of the internet and total idiots believing anything on the internet, (seemingly people with no actual critical thinking), they were tagged as them being part of the disruption. The area is where St James hospital is (where I have worked) and there were there were fake posts about doctors etc joining in. Only an complete idiot would fall for this, right?

Most people did not join in- the majority of the community filled bins with water and out fires out and de-escalated the trouble. But of course you know better how to handle this stuff. So please put yourself on standby with your megaphone for future disruptions and obviously superior de-esalation skills. The fact it was dealt with in a few hours with injury or fatality really is irrelevant .....

My dps family live there. I and they disagree. It’s not sensationalist.

The original flash point was people threatening Social workers. That’s your colleague/s?

The original flash point was some children being neglected and a community believing they don’t have to abide by the same rules as everyone else and serious child issues should be ignored by authorities.

Did Leeds social services miss Star Hobson being murdered?

Removing the children wasn’t the ‘flash point’. Or at least it shouldn’t have been.

I am mixed race and from Leeds. My mother and father aren’t from England. I lived in the area in the early 2000s, after the 2001 riots. People didn’t even want to drive through at night. In the middle of the afternoon a car in front of me had the roof down an adult male threw a milkshake at the driver. Luckily the driver kept control of the car. Had it have mounted a pavement children would have been killed. Children who are from that community. Who was hostile to the adult man who threw the milkshake? What was that flash point?

Many of the people who live there are great people. But do you know what’s happening? They are moving out.

The hostility that’s risen in the last decade, who is it aimed at? Because there’s been hostility in the area for at least 20 years. Or is who it’s aimed that’s changed.

The respected community leaders didn’t de-escalate it. I have seen evidence that one did. And he does lead the whole community though his job suggests he should.

I live further out now, again, in an area that’s known for being fairly deprived. There’s crime rate is low. Me being not white hasn’t been an issue, plenty of non white or non British people here and that’s not causing problems. But the next village along, had had loads of issues because a hotel on the outskirts has been filled with immigrants ands crime is rising. Of course people are becoming hostile towards them.

I can’t believe a Social worker, who works in this area is so nonchalant about what happened to their own colleagues trying to do their job and help children who were in a bad situation. Or are you claiming the children were not in a bad situation and you know who you work for is targeting Roma children with no evidence?

willstarttomorrow I live 5 mins from Harehills. My DPs grew up there. I’ve lived in Leeds my whole life. I do think Mothin Ali was doing his best to put a stop to the trouble. I do think Community leaders are important as they know the issues, mindsets of their local populations and know how best to speak to them in a way that resonates. However the police needed to take more action so that people like Mothin Ali didn’t have to put himself at great risk.

The majority did not try and out the fire out.

Some did. Quite a few in fact. But many many stood there and watched it like entertainment.

Does any one know the age of the oldest child left in charge of the baby ?

I guess ultimately because they dont trust the authority figures in this country, and they want to stick to their own ways of doing things?

I think you're becoming a touch confused. This often happens when someone tries to defend the indefensible.

No matter, I am leaving my house soon-on a street occupied by mostly people born and bred in England. I expect to return tonight and not find a bus burning at the end of my street and rioting crowds.
I shall be calling on my parents-who live in an area populated by mostly Italian people. I do not expect to find an upended police car at the end of their road and rioting crowds.
If I did, I would not take pride in the fact that it was handled in a few hours with no fatality as you seem to take pride in with regard to Harehills. Your bar is low.

Riots should not be happening at all and, if they do, the police should stamp them out.. Community leaders are not needed. We have the police. It is not escalating the matter to impose law and order, although clearly the police, dealing with the Harehill community-thought it was.

These communities cannot act like little principalities with their own leaders. It should be made clear that they are not the norm here and they should have to accept it or leave.

Of course, all this shite is too far gone now. They know they answer to no-one but their own and they have been encouraged to believe they are entitled to do so.

Anyway, if I do see any buses burning in these English or Italian communities, I'll be sure to report back on how they banished the police and waited for their own community leaders to come along.

But why move to another country then, if you don’t trust their authority figures, don’t accept their rules and want to live your life according to your own traditions?

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo. I think you have totally misunderstood my post. My colleagues have frequently removed children and would have had to have a court order or police order to do so. I am well aware of Star Hobson (in a neighboring LA) and all other high profile cases where CSWS have failed. I live in fear of letting children down this way. Since the last government were in power our team of 11 social workers has been cut to 6 and the area we cover expanded to 4x the size. We are an outstanding authority for child protection but we are running on fumes.

Supporting services have been cut to the bone, same with the police and health visting etc. The majority of the work we do is working with family's to prevent it getting to this stage. Social workers, the police, schools and health visitors etc mostly mostly really successfully with a good outcome despite all of the above.

We also have now have to do a lot of work around CCE and CSE as there are no other agencies to take this on. On top of this, there are no placemets for children who come into care so I can spend several hours a day filling in placement requests then sitting with a child/ren in McDonald's until late at night every few days as they bounce between carers. All whilst having to do the day-to-day referral stuff. It is the same for all other agencies.

Our problem is we have been far too tolerant for far too long …in fact we bend over backwards.

in other countries you follow their rules or you find out the hard way and they won’t soft touch like we do…

We have placated and prevaricated for far too long and now the future is scary…

Try this elsewhere and you’ll be tear gassed or rubber bullets bring in the water canons next time for these animals …

That's ok then

@OlgaBracley- of course it is not okay- however it was dealt without any casualties mainly because the people who live in the area worker with the police and authorities to de-escalate and stop things going further. I am sorry that live in an area in which social cohesion and unity does not exist. If there are no social leaders, maybe you could set this up? (Social leaders -very flexible term, it can also apply in less multicultural areas,- just someone trying to do good for the area. Like scout leader, help with the elderly action group, youth stuff- all happening here in another disadvantaged area of leeds).

Exactly

@marshmallowmix Can you please quantify this? I have family in France, Spain Greece, Germany Turkey, and Bulgaria. My understanding is that most (probably not Bulgaria) have a far larger number of immigrants than we take in the UK. Turkey in particular have had a huge influence from Syria etc. Not sure how we are 'bending over backwards' compared to the the EU countries where the majority of migrants settle. Please provide figures.

I haven’t misunderstood. I just don’t agree with your view of it. And you were, in my opinion, not in the slightest bit bother about your (supposed) colleagues.
and your response is just justifying what you wrote and why SS mis things and make mistakes.

Services have been cut. But money in the last 20 years has been piled into the area to stop anti social behaviour. Even the fire services, B&Q were involved in organising community spaces to try and stop the amount of fires that were being set because ‘our kids are bored and we don’t have community centres’ was 10-15 years ago. And hostile have grown in the last 10 years? Setting fires isn’t hostile?

Placements for children are very difficult. I know this. A friend is a foster carer in Wakefield. it’s not logical that your colleagues just turned up to take the children because of racism. Yet you talk of hostilities have increased. Not the fact that the Social workers and Police probably had good reason to remove the children. And maybe that’s the problem.

You talk about the removal of children being the flash point. When it wasn’t.

You talk about how ‘respected community leaders’ had to de-escalate it. Yet you can’t see the connection. Communities of people who don’t want to abide by the laws and would only listen to someone from their own community. Thats the problem. Whether the community is white or not. British born or not. If entire communities feel they can do what they want, especially when it come to child neglect. There’s an issue. And your argument is ‘well done for being born somewhere safe’. Pretty strange for a social worker of 20 years to have not realised that assuming someone’s back ground, where and how they grew up isn’t a good idea.

Then let’s add that there’s still protests going on. Peaceful. But people wailing in the street they want their kids back because it’s upsetting for them. Community leaders giving their support to the family immediately and saying how upsetting it is for the parents. And straight away putting it down to racism.

How many abused and neglected children are there, where people around them didn’t know it was happening? yet the pillars of their community aren’t really interested in the children. They jumped straight to racism and straight to the parents feelings. If these community leaders care about their people, why aren’t they so concerned for the children and want them returned no matter what?

But the issue is people being hostile to those in the community?

you talked about it being sensationalist and hostilities growing in the last 10 years but seem to have forgotten past riots in the area and have no clue what’s it’s been like for 20 or so years at least.

It reads like SS in this area have no actual clue what’s going on and the causes of it.

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo
I am a bit confused- at no point did I say these children should not be removed for their well being- believe me, the threshold is now so high to get senior management/Court approval would Ihave usually been visiting every day with a case load of 40+ or driving to/from school.

Social workers all the UK are working to keep children safe day-to-day. On this occasion it errupted into some localised violence which was triggered with children coming into care. The family were upset (usual) but their extended network joined and then things got out of hand with unrelated people then joining in.

I have worked in front line children's services for nearly 20 years in Leeds. I love my job but it is all consuming. I work in West/Inner Leeds now but have worked in East leeds. Both patches have their own complexities. Yes I do have a clue what is going on. I know the areas. I work within statute and policy. I am sensitive to cultural differences yet at the heart of every thing I do is the interest of the child.

I have not said these children should not have been removed. However I am very angry at the misreporting and sensationalist reactions about what happened in Harehills in both the media and this thread (all misinformed).

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo There is a massive shortage of social workers so please sign up to your local uni as you can obviously the job so well. Just 3 year degree- with placements obvs, where you will be expected to show some understanding of cultural diversity and deprivation. All much easier now as universities are businesses. I had to have 2 years relevant experience and be at least 23, and have a relevant undergraduate degree in social politics/sociology/law etc. But this was before social media really got going and every now every is a bloody expert.

Then just find a job who will sponsor you for your qualifying year and you can fix it all. Good luck!

Who said I could do the job? I have a professional role that I studied long and hard for. If I wanted to be a social worker, I would be one.

I am not moaning about social workers or saying they are all bad. I am saying your, personal, attitude and view of situation is out of touch. And if that’s the view of who you work for there’s an issue. That doesn’t mean there’s an issue with all social workers. Or are you all clones of each other that think the same?

Your attitude of hostility being a problem of the last decade, in an area you work in, proves you don’t know the first thing about the area.

You being the sort of person that assumes other people must have had safe and loving homes and so just dont understand is a problem for a social worker.

You are the one that has no regard for your colleagues or the children they were trying to remove and making up reasons it’s wasn’t that bad. Those social workers were doing their jobs. Who said they were in the wrong? Your attitude is what I disagree with.

Your assumption that I am saying all social workers are bad because I disagree with you, personally, is quite frankly odd. So odd, in fact, it appears you don’t really have a point so trying to pretend I said something that I didn’t.

why was my post removed explaining country sizes compared to the UK?

@willstarttomorrow didn’t like the truth so got my post removed …👏

@marshmallowmix
Land mass is irrelevant. Despite the shit show that was brexit, GDP still puts us as one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Which is shameful really considering the levels of poverty. The right wing press and last government have whipped up a huge amount of hatred for immigrants pre and post brexit. For anyone who bothered to do research pre brexit, the financial contribution made by all the people from overseas was far larger than any drain on public services. But now Europe gets to send back all the inactive pensioners who could retire somwwhere and use the health services and our children cannot work/study/travel easily in Europe anymore so we have won!

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo We will leave it here. I hate threads which go of tangent because people get side tracked.

I have no idea why you have got it into your head I have no feelings for my colleagues (some of whom I have spoken to). I also have no assumption people grow up in safe loving homes- I certainly did not. My initial post was not even to do with social work.

I posted on this thread because people who I expect do not live in, or know Leeds, let alone Harehills were whipping up and joining the media frenzy. It was not good, not pretty but no where near riots and 'lawlessness' that people want to make it out to be.

marshmallowmix
Not me-

It's always a bunch of asshole young men who think it's fun to fuck stuff up. They're selfish, entitled pricks who think they can do whatever they like. The majority of people just stand around watching but there's always a few who just will take any excuse to cause trouble. There's no point to it beyond impressing their sad little mates and thinking they're big men.

I was in Canada when the Vancouver riots were happening over the ice hockey. No one could put that down to poverty or being disenfranchised, it was about incredibly immature dickheads who followed the crowd and thought it was a laugh. I think it's really offensive to blame riots and lawlessness on poverty, most poor people wouldn't dream of behaving like that.

Blame it on too much testosterone, too much immaturity and too many selfish, entitled pricks..