This Thursday evening, local residents will issue an ‘eviction notice’ on a teenage gang which has been carrying out vicious, unprovoked assaults in and around Gillians Park, Blackbird Leys, Oxford.
This Thursday evening, local residents will issue an ‘eviction notice’ on a teenage gang which has been carrying out vicious, unprovoked assaults in and around Gillians Park, Blackbird Leys, Oxford.
Over the past couple of months the gang has been responsible for a string of incidents, ranging from threats and intimidation, to street robbery and gratuitously violent physical attacks. One young victim had his nose smashed with a sawn-off pool cue while another was slashed with a knife, the length of his back. In a recent incident even a pizza deliveryman was mugged.
Now residents say, ‘enough is enough’.
As the park effectively controls access to the only shop on Greater Leys, numerous families have been affected by the activities of the gang using it as a base. Many parents are now frightened to send their kids to the shop. Yet, up to now, those who have sought help from the authorities have come up against a brick wall.
One mother who turned to the police after both her sons were attacked on two separate occasions was told there was nothing the police could do. She is now living in fear of reprisals after one of the ringleaders of the gang threatened to burn her house down.
Local resident Jane Lacey, who is involved in organising the picket, said, ‘what are we supposed to do? The police say they can’t do anything but no doubt they’ll complain about any action we take and say that we have to consider the “human rights” of the gang members. The fact is we need a strategy to deal with these problems—as a community.
‘The picket will be the start of our campaign. What we are trying to do is show them that they’re not big or clever doing this stuff—they’re screwing the community and they will be despised for it. We also want the parents of the gang members to sit up and take notice before it’s too late and their kids become totally beyond control. It’s the mothers and teenagers on the estate who are most concerned and we’ll be out in force to show them.’
IWCA councillor Stuart Craft, who was elected to represent the ward in May 2002 said, ‘Last year, in response to a successful IWCA campaign against crack-cocaine and heroin dealers operating in Gillians Park, the police and Labour-run council said they were going to “design out” crime but all they seem to have done so far is take some aerial photographs of the park. The fact we now have a mugging epidemic taking place there is further evidence that their response has been totally inadequate.
‘Generally while there’s been a lot of talk from the government about tackling antisocial behaviour with new legislation being introduced practically every month, the truth is that on the ground we still see the same indifference, the studied reluctance from the main political parties to get involved.’
Over the past couple of months the gang has been responsible for a string of incidents, ranging from threats and intimidation, to street robbery and gratuitously violent physical attacks. One young victim had his nose smashed with a sawn-off pool cue while another was slashed with a knife, the length of his back. In a recent incident even a pizza deliveryman was mugged.
Now residents say, ‘enough is enough’.
As the park effectively controls access to the only shop on Greater Leys, numerous families have been affected by the activities of the gang using it as a base. Many parents are now frightened to send their kids to the shop. Yet, up to now, those who have sought help from the authorities have come up against a brick wall.
One mother who turned to the police after both her sons were attacked on two separate occasions was told there was nothing the police could do. She is now living in fear of reprisals after one of the ringleaders of the gang threatened to burn her house down.
Local resident Jane Lacey, who is involved in organising the picket, said, ‘what are we supposed to do? The police say they can’t do anything but no doubt they’ll complain about any action we take and say that we have to consider the “human rights” of the gang members. The fact is we need a strategy to deal with these problems—as a community.
‘The picket will be the start of our campaign. What we are trying to do is show them that they’re not big or clever doing this stuff—they’re screwing the community and they will be despised for it. We also want the parents of the gang members to sit up and take notice before it’s too late and their kids become totally beyond control. It’s the mothers and teenagers on the estate who are most concerned and we’ll be out in force to show them.’
IWCA councillor Stuart Craft, who was elected to represent the ward in May 2002 said, ‘Last year, in response to a successful IWCA campaign against crack-cocaine and heroin dealers operating in Gillians Park, the police and Labour-run council said they were going to “design out” crime but all they seem to have done so far is take some aerial photographs of the park. The fact we now have a mugging epidemic taking place there is further evidence that their response has been totally inadequate.
‘Generally while there’s been a lot of talk from the government about tackling antisocial behaviour with new legislation being introduced practically every month, the truth is that on the ground we still see the same indifference, the studied reluctance from the main political parties to get involved.’
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Fascists the march again.
03.10.2003 09:11
Kram
Fascists in our community
03.10.2003 09:26
Just check out their weasel words!
"Race & class
For many years racism was opposed because people recognised that it divided the working class. Increasingly, however, there are calls for the state funding of religious schools, for segregated schooling and for segregated housing. All of which is promoted in the name of anti-racism.
However, experience shows that the funding of social projects purely on the grounds of race can only foster an us and them scenario, with the result that instead of being united by anti-racism, the working class can just as easily be divided by it. Multiculturalism, which insists everyone be treated differently, also undermines the concept of fairness at the core of anti-racism. For example, in America recent research has found that the application of the multicultural strategy has increased segregation in many cities and created a black middle class, often directly at the expense of the black working class."
Churchill
Make some sense please
03.10.2003 09:55
Sean
Read the quote and checkout the website.
03.10.2003 10:23
Just another quote from a quick glance at your site.
"Failures of the class system - 20 August 2003
Only 18% of white working class boys achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A - C, "
Why the rascist analysis?
Love
Stalin
get a grip
03.10.2003 11:04
sean
*sigh*
03.10.2003 16:21
Sonic
So...
03.10.2003 16:37
Emma
Oxford yobs
04.10.2003 14:41
This is a problem that is widespread throughout the UK. At least the local residents are doing something about it and should be applauded, not lambasted.
In Guildford, the town centre becomes a no-go area on Friday and Saturday nights, taken over by several hundred drunken yobs.
In Aldershot, local residents living in the town centre, can't get to sleep until the early hours of the morning. This is not restricted to weekends, it happens every night of the week. The local council does worse than turn a blind eye, they grant extended pub opening hours.
On housing estates away from the town centre, local yobs are terrorizing the decent folk who live on the estates. The local council, and the so-called social housing landlord, Pavilion, turn a blind eye. The only time Pavilion have been galvanized into action has been to threaten a local campaigner Peter Sandy with eviction and an anti-social behaviour order. His 'crime' was to form an action group for one of the estates and raise the profile of Pavilion, not only for their failure to deal with the yobs running riot, but also the appalling state of repair of the estates.
We have ever more draconian legislation introduced to deal with anti-social behaviour and terrorism, and yet the only time it ever gets dusted down and used, is to clamp down on political dissent and protest. The police are nowhere to be seen when decent citizens are having their lives destroyed, the 'authorities' don't want to know. But you can guarantee that if some form of political protest or direct action was taking place, the police would be out in force.
We look to the Piqueteras in Argentina, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, and praise them for their direct action and seizing power and running their own communities without the aid of corrupt politicians. And yet, when the community minded citizens in Oxford do the same thing, they are slagged off.
We should be learning by their example, giving support, and helping other communities to take control of their own space. If they don't, no one else will do it for them.
Keith Parkins
Homepage:
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm
we need more of the above!
04.10.2003 17:52
durruti
Nice one
06.10.2003 16:26
wch
IWCA sound like New Labour
08.10.2003 23:27
I can't quite understand why the IWCA is adopting Jack Straw's vigilante "have a go" policy, and at least in rhetoric even Blair made a commitment to be tough on the causes of crime.
Surely there must be some alternative for the working class youth pulled into the pit of drugs and violence other than the threat of a kicking by other members of the class instead of the police.
Why not hold a picket against poverty or lack of facilities. Gang life only looks attractive because the alternatives are so poor.
Ian M
e-mail:
ian.m2@unisonfree.net
Pragmatism over impractical idealism
14.10.2003 16:21
The Socialist Alliance is now a useless husk, and no amount of sensationalised 'achievements' (We were on the anti-war demo! 13 votes council election breakthrough! etc) is going to change the minds of a) Previously potential socialist recruits and b) the working class en masse.
This could be the start of extremely positive and progressive working class self-organisation. I wish it all the success and might even be tempted to join.
supporter