The Telegraph’s columnist Judith Woods has a horrific story to tell about her daughter’s mugging in broad daylight in Hackney. It’s another example of the terrifying way not only London, but also the whole country, has deteriorated in recent years:
On Wednesday, Hackney made headlines because of the ructions over Diane Abbott and whether or not she would be standing again as a candidate after a 37-year run as Labour MP.
On Thursday morning, we woke up to the ghastly news that three adults and a child had been seriously injured in a drive-by shooting at Evin restaurant, where the tables spill out onto the pavement and good-natured staff banter with regulars.
Evin, you know, that Turkish place where the local mums meet for coffee after primary school drop-off? Next to the Stone Cave with the fabulous shish kebabs and the belly dancers at weekends. …
Hackney has undergone rapid gentrification with its plethora of organic supermarkets. Same-sex couples freely hold hands in public. Hipsters with French bulldogs and brogues abound. But a dark underbelly of gangland violence simmers below the surface of a postcode now deemed highly desirable; a bog-standard three-bed Victorian terrace will set you back more than £1 million.
Way back in 2014, Vogue named Hackney one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world. Its reputation as a creative enclave has increased stratospherically since then; birthplace of Idris Elba and Paloma Faith – Marc Bolan long before them – its recent residents have included former One Directioner Harry Styles.
And yet violent crime is on the rise. Figures from December last year show Hackney experienced a 6.3% increase in knife crime, with 624 knife-related crimes reported to Met Police.
And Judith Woods’s family has had direct experience:
This is depressing if unsurprising. My elder daughter, Lily and her then-boyfriend were mugged, aged 15, by two grown men, one of whom was carrying a large serrated zombie knife.
It was broad daylight, a Sunday afternoon, and their assailants, who reeked of weed, stopped and separated them.
My daughter foolishly said she was not carrying a phone – and was immediately frisked. Her mobile was fortunately in her hoodie pocket. Her boyfriend wisely handed over his iPhone – but when he turned to see what was happening to Lily, he found the cold blade suddenly pressed against his bare stomach amid threats that he would be stabbed. He was only 15 as well.
They were just a couple of minutes away; on a residential road where houses sell for £2 million-plus. The police came swiftly, but the muggers were long gone.
Woods then proceeds to itemise the gun crime in the area, including:
And just a fortnight ago, a woman was shot in the leg near our local Morrisons – although police say she was not the intended target.
If that’s the best the police can come up with, you get a sense of how far this has gone. It’s becoming impossible to distinguish parts of this country from the sort of stories we used to hear about South Central LA. And still do, but it seems there’s increasingly little difference. One wonders whether anyone in any of the major parties has the slightest idea what to do about the problem. The Labour Party, today at least, seems more interested in arguing about Hackney’s long-serving MP Diane Abbott.
On a positive note though, it does show how egalitarian a place Britain is turning into. It doesn’t matter how much your house is worth or where you live, you can still be mugged by a thug with a zombie knife.
Worth reading in full.
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