The rapid escalation of knife and other violent crime across Fulham and Chelsea is shocking and deeply troubling.
Yesterday, a neighbour shared the latest chilling story about a single woman who was burgled at her home near Fulham Broadway. She’d heard noises and opened the curtains. There was a huge man at her window. She called 999 and was told she has to wait 40 minutes. Meanwhile she could actually hear the intruders downstairs. It later transpired they were armed. This is a truly shocking story that is now commonplace across London.
Somehow crime has become the new norm and it’s expected rather than being a surprise. Sadly the police do very little, but by ignoring the small crimes we encourage and fuel the more serious crimes. The monster has been created by accepting chaos and tolerance when the reality is that young people are crying out for boundaries, rules and containment.
My son’s reaction to his experience of being mugged at knifepoint at 4.15 pm in broad daylight, 20 meters from his school was that it was just to be expected these days. It is now just a typical part of a teenager's life growing up in London.
What struck me most was how he took it on the chin and expected it to happen again and was even protective of those who had mugged him. This mirrors what is going on in society where we protect the criminals, but neglects the victims.
If you do not punish or reform criminal behaviour, unsurprisingly it gets worse and worse.
After my son was mugged, they caught the five boys red-handed, at a huge cost of resources and emotion, yet still nothing was done. Nothing ever seems to be done and so it goes on and on. The victims get no justice and the criminals take what they want and hurt who they want. The police have their hands tied and the paperwork piles up. So the muggers become rich, more brazen and aggressive because they know they are above the law.
It infuriates me that because of institutional failings, our sons, as well as other vulnerable members of the community like the elderly, accept attacks and theft as a way of life and are forced to run the gauntlet everyday.
Over the last 12 months, every single boy from my son's primary school year group has been mugged at knifepoint, some of them twice.
In my frustration I contacted my local MP Greg Hands. He wrote sympathetic letters and agreed to meet the mothers of the boys to discuss what could be done. We arrived with all sorts of ideas and shared our insights about the drug gangs dealing in Bishops Park.
I felt hopeful after the meeting and spent hours putting together ideas and working out practical ways to stem the epidemic with the other mothers. But nothing was done. Nothing at all. No response, just another meeting, lots of empty promises, but no action. Most of the boys are scared to go out because walking ten minutes to a mates' house can end in having a knife pulled on you with the threat of being “shanked” (which means being stabbed) if you don’t hand over your passwords, phones and wallets. If you can’t remember your codes, it gets really nasty. One boy I know was so terrified he couldn't remember his pin and received a jab in his neck, not deep but just enough to wound and terrify him. Imagine that. Imagine letting your sons grow up in a world where society and police don’t protect them.
The Tories will pretend to put more police on the streets but will cut back-room staff and meanwhile are still busy closing essential police stations like the one in Notting Hill. It’s all a trick of the lights and a manipulation of the optics.
I can't tell you the number of friends who have had similar experiences with their sons from ages as young as ten.
It doesn't stop there. Last week my widowed 80-year-old mother, was woken from her sleep around 2am by two loud banging noises. She was terrified, she thought there was a gunshot, but when she checked the house she couldn't find anything. About 20 minutes later there was another bang, again she checked and saw two hooded men lurking in the shadows. But these days that's nothing unusual.
The next morning she contacted her neighbour who has CCTV to ask him to review the previous night's footage. He reported back that he ‘had it all’; clear footage of a gang of four hooded men kicking in her door. At the second attempt they stopped, but had cracked the mahogany door that my father had insisted on installing before he died. They couldn't kick it in, so came back 20 minutes later with their van and tried to ram the door. Imagine what they might have done. She called the police and the operator who couldn't have been less interested said someone would come on Tuesday. It was Saturday and they would visit my vulnerable, elderly mother who lives on her own three days later. Incredible.
In the end she got a call from a detective who sent round a completely indifferent police officer who couldn't wait to get away and who wasn’t interested in the CCTV footage. Nothing was done. Nothing at all. Nothing ever is. She has a crime number and that’s it.
The ex police officers I speak to are appalled and ashamed of how bad things have got and I have spoken to a few that have great integrity and were proud servants of the law.
They advised me to get a private security company if I wanted an immediate response. That’s shameful, but I was grateful to know this.
Last week, I came across Greg Hands at a drinks party and I approached him with my concerns and told him these stories. The platitudes flowed and the party line poured, while no concrete help at all was offered. He simply filled up his wine glass and smugly trumpeted about how ‘we’re putting 20,000 more police on the streets’.
I’d like to know who was responsible for closing down and selling off the police stations, thus removing the relational cement that meant that the police had community camaraderie and focus. Who stripped them of their sense of family and belonging, because that is what's filtered into the communities, where people no longer feel connected or a part of something. The depersonalisation of the bobby killed the essence of law and order. Where chaos rules, law and order cannot exist.
Criminal activity on the streets of London is out of control. It’s a war zone out there. London has fallen. Whoever is prepared to care, to be a human being and tackle such horrors gets my vote. tragically, I fear that none of the current candidates, once elected will champion and fight for change. It will be business as usual.