I feel there is a lot of anti-social behaviour and crime where I live in Croftdown road, Highgate.
A few weeks ago, there was a lot of commotion outside my house because someone was screaming and banging on doors. My husband and son opened the door to see what was happening and saw a young woman waving a butcher’s knife around and banging on our neighbour’s door and chucking things at his house and at cars.
We opened the door to see what was happening and saw a young woman waving a butcher’s knife around.
She spotted us and charged at our door, just reaching it before we could close it. We had to push against her really hard before we finally managed to shut her out.
We were scared and I called the police and while I was on the phone with them they could hear her screaming in the background. We wanted the police to come quickly and they said they’d come soon.
Eventually they went to the house next door and managed to bundle the woman into their van. It was very frightening. They never came to us even though we must have called them at about the same time the neighbour did and she had tried to get us with her knife.
Nobody bothered to tell us what was happening and they didn’t let us know if our neighbourhood would be safe in the next days or weeks.
Nobody bothered to tell us what was happening.
Our family members have learning and physical disabilities and we feel that’s why the police don’t listen to us. It is discrimination. It is very important to us that the police take it seriously if we call them and say we are in danger.
We still don’t know to this day what happened to the woman. Could she come back? Would we be a target? These questions are killing us.
Other disabled people and families in Camden have also been victims of crime and been let down by the police or the justice system.
I interviewed fellow community reporter Gloria Bradley about her experience of crime.
Gloria said: “My eldest son Michael when he was 14 in broad daylight went to Pang’s chip shop and he’d just come back from the park after taking his younger brother three or four and he was attacked and stabbed by five Indian boys.”
“It came out that it was a racial attack.”
“He was left in the street. It was two of his friends who carried him to the door. He had two puncture wounds in his lungs and he was airlifted to hospital from outside my door to UCH hospital where he spent nearly a week there.”
“But after the stabbing he just wasn’t the same person. He was very defensive and angry all the time.”
After the stabbing he just wasn’t the same person.
“He did go to court; he picked them all out in a line up and every one of them got community service. No one served any time for what had happened. He was left with two scars on his back and still to this day he has problems with his lung.”
Listen to Jill’s interview of Gloria here.
CDA has looked into the figures on crime and anti-social behaviour in Camden and presented some of them here.
In Highgate over the last 12 months (August 22 to July 23) there have been 243 incidents of anti-social behaviour, 230 violent or sexual offences, 133 burglaries and 39 cases of theft from a person.
Kentish Town North, where Camden Disability Action is based, has seen 190 incidents of anti-social behaviour, 219 violent or sexual offences, 69 burglaries and 23 thefts from the person over the last 12 months.
Meanwhile, Camden Town has witnessed a far higher crime rate, with 840 violent and sexual offences, 817 anti-social behaviour incidents, 819 thefts from a person and 121 burglaries taking place over the same period.
Check the crime rate in your area here
