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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Carry a knife —10 years——Use the knife—–20 years.——–Seriuosly injure someone with the knife——30 years——–Kill someone with the knife—-40 years. ———-Well that has taken care of that problem, now what is next?
Except it wouldn’t take care of the problem, would it?
The only thing to do is leave the place to the gangsters and let it solve itself naturally.
Go where you are treated best, I guess…
I certainly don’t expect politicians to come up with solutions, and London is pretty much left wing. Funny, that.
I don’t agree with you at all. Once people know where they are going if they use that knife it might not stop it 100% but it will reduce it greatly, and if the disgusting pieces of human trash are all locked up then that leaves the rest of us freer to go about our business free from this criminality. I am sick to death of “social justice”. ——There is only one true justice —“equal justice” for all. ——-When you say “it wouldn’t take care of the problem” I say yes it would because the person who stuck a knife in somebody will no longer be on the street
Personally I am very much in favour of shipping the whole damned lot back to Pakistan or Afghanistan.
The solution is police presence in the street, ready to act on actual crimes, ie, not “I suspect this guy [I really don’t like at all!] might be carrying something in his pockets!”
Don’t you think locking up criminals works? By which I mean, while they are in prison they cannot be committing crimes outside of prison.
London has always been a bit like this, at least since I have been alive and before that from what my dad told me about where he grew up. Probably most big cities are a bit like this. That’s not to say it hasn’t got worse.
It would be a start , it’s obvious TPTB (whoever they are) don’t want to stop the knives !
“Kill someone with the knife—-40 years.”
Kill someone with the knife— Long Drop
I prefer option two although I suppose short drop could be substituted.
On that very topic, this just happened in Germany. A guy going psycho, stabbing people then gets shot by the police. Nobody appears to have been killed but there are multiple injuries. Can’t see this vid staying up for long;
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1796496788935053537
EDIT: This is the blurb from another channel, for context;
”Knife-wielding Muslim man STABS conservative politician and anti-Islam activist Michael Stürzenberger in Mannheim.
The suspect also stabbed a police officer in the neck.
The media has labeled Stürzenberger a threat to democracy, a bigot and a “fascist.”
This violence is the end result.” Comments say the perpetrator is dead. Developing story…
Maybe a bit of real world breaking into this fantasy. Tenthousand policemen busy with stopping and searching perfecly law-abiding citizens to strip them of the pocket knifes which may or may not be 0.25cm longer than allowed to compile a statistic about Something being done about knife crime! — and two streets from that, teenage couples getting mugged by people carrying zombie knives because there’s no policemen in sight who could do something about real, violent crimes as they’re all occupied with the We are doing something!-bullshit joyride.
Deterrence and policing have always worked to control the crime problem. It does not eliminate it. Reducing both the deterence and policing results in an explosion of wanton criminality.
‘Assailants reeked of weed and one carried a large zombie knife.’ Millwall supporters were they?
That’s speciesist.
Probably not , even Football agro merchants are not known to randomly attack the public away from their match day frenzy’s !
https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/why-has-violent-crime-declined-in
The article above states that violent crime has actually reduced, and the reason for that is that we are incarcerating more criminals than we used to.
Crime is easy to solve. The vast majority of violent criminals will be known to the police, if not for prior violent crime then for lesser crimes.
Violent criminals need to be in prison for longer, and there should be no reduced sentencing on the basis of being young. The social benefit of putting a violent 17 year old in prison for 10 years is greater than putting a violent 37 year old in prison for 20 years.
Repeat offenders should be given significantly enhanced sentences. Grievous bodily harm – 10 years. Do it once more after you get out – whole of life.
Let them watch netflix and play computer games in their cells for the rest of their lives. Doesn’t need to be too expensive.
Move all incoming immigrants to Richmond Upon Thames, Chelsea, Fitzrovia and Primose Hill. Let’s see how much people like Lineker believe in open borders when their quaint local pubs become Islamic learning centres and their thatched cottage lined streets become filled with malevolent drug gangs.
Seconded 👍
The cities and large towns are lost and cannot now be recovered. Destroyed by mass immigration from the third world and the primitive and corrupt governance which inevitably follows.
Some of England remains, for now at least, in the small towns and villages. For England to survive London must be cut adrift along with the Celtic fringe. Thinks will get a lot worse before they get better, if they ever do.
Any news on about the Mannheim stabbings? It’s on the Daily Stabbing but not the BBC so far.
I only have this;
https://rmx.news/article/breaking-shock-video-shows-anti-islam-activist-and-german-politician-michael-sturzenberger-stabbed-in-mannheim-police-officer-stabbed-in-the-neck/
Pretty detailed write-up of the events in German:
https://jungefreiheit.de/politik/deutschland/2024/eilmeldung-islamkritiker-und-polizist-in-mannheim-niedergestochen/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3Tvb_1LfgOYbjfOCPXZO5i7Z0CpEvhDugGeHcro3adcwx_lrZhXd0wPqo_aem_Aas3HO9SLDMS342ZorvIA8Pwcz6O3ALhKuKRvV-B7B2CR2O66dCBFfyi7Q3FgtM-fpjoRWpAC4CcoUlMSDF4-Vna
It seems this was a cold-blooded (the attacker has been photographed calmy observing the preparations for the event which was supposed to take place there) attack on a high-profile critic of political islam with the event to to nip an “anti-islamic” public event in the bud. There’s also a video of a so-called German ranting (in German) about how the attacker has achieved the highest level of islamic paradise with his deed and that all Germans critical of Islam ought and will end in this way.
The victim was also being ‘observed’ by the German inland secret service because of “islamophobia relevant for protection of the constitution”.
Paul J Watson sums it up well in this video. Someone mentioned they live in rural Forest of Dean; likewise, its rural here in mid Wales but we are sleepwalking into hell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44CxhebzJsY
Forgive the dark humour on this serious subject but at least in LA you get hot hookers. Here in UK it is all punishment and no rewards. As someone mentioned, looking at some of these hookers, if I lived there I would be broke!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVEec9YhOIg
There are quite a few in Reading although it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between them and female students. The difference is probably mostly Do they prefer money or cocktails?
:->