Gangs or no gangs...will we ever know?

When a Hackney youth club closed down in August the Hackney Gazette reported (21 Oct) that it had something to do with a lease... or some "minor refurbishments".

A week later, in a full council meeting, Hoxton councillor Philip Glanville claimed that the club's management had closed it down because of gangs. He said that the claims had been made in emails to the council from SkyWay, the organisation which runs the Blue Hut youth club.

In the Gazette's October story a council spokesperson said that the club would re-open in the new year. Those plans are still in place but the story of the club's closure remains mysterious because of these claims about gangs.

Skyway's allegations were pursued by Hoxton's Labour councillors - Clayeon Mackenzie, Philip Glanville and Carole Williams. Cllr Glanville said that the Dalston-based SkyWay didn't report these gang-related problems to the police or the council or anyone else.

He brought the issue to the attention of a full council meeting in October when a report by the Children and Young People (CYP) Scrutiny Commission was published which claimed that Blue Hut was running well.

The report described the Blue Hut project as one that dealt specifically with gangs. It trained

15-24-year-olds to show their peers that, "there is an alternative to the gangs many young people will see on a daily basis."

Six months before the club was closed down by the alleged gang activity the CYP Scrutiny Commission visited and reported that: 'Staff at the Blue Hut said that the results so far have been very positive and they have seen a number of the peers grow in maturity & confidence..."

Glanville said that when Blue Hut closed "none of us could really believe that turn of events" adding that "SkyWay's initial response was that it was plagued by problems, we were worried that events had so quickly changed for the worst, or that something may have been misrepresented".

Now the centre could reopen with no further explanation of the alleged gang problem and why it wasn't reported.

Blood and Property called SkyWay but no one would comment or even say that the organisation was officially making "no comment".

The reopening may be good news but something must have been wrong for this to have happened. Either there was a gang problem or there wasn't. It seems unlikey that the decision by SkyWay to shut down the project was only due to a problem with a fire escape as it is now being portrayed.

Hopefully it hasn't been made difficult for SkyWay to explain the true nature of the situation.

In April a 16-year-old girl was shot dead in a Hoxton chicken shop (Hackney Hive report with interesting comments) which resulted in a number of teenagers as well as a couple of men in their twenties being charged.

So the idea that there might be a gang problem in Hoxton is not exactly far-fetched - it just doesn't sound like a valid reason to close down a project designed to deal with gang problems.

Did gangs close Hackney youth centre?

A Hackney youth centre closed down last week, apparently due to gang activity. It had been open for a year.

Cllr Rita Krishna and Cllr Gulay Icoz told Hackney Council on Wednesday that the Blue Hut youth club had closed down.

I think it was Hoxton councilllor, Philip Glanville who added more detail. He started talking about gangs and the previously optimistic comments of Skyways, the voluntary sector organisation which ran Blue Hut. He appeared to be suggesting that Skyways ducked-out out of Blue Hut too easily. He said that voluntary providers also hadn't 'come up to scratch' in the borough (Hoxton Hall - also).

But in relation to Blue Hut, the implication was that Skyways didn't have problem with gangs six months ago but this changed... "One of the reasons they walked away is that they said that there were 'issues'"

I don't 100% know that's what was meant. I'll have to find out in the week unless someone can tell me.

(plans for the youth centre from 2003 - Skyway site and video)

Description of Skyway project in Wednesday's report including a recommendation to base other projects around its strategy. P. 184 of Council agenda:

Blue Hut - Peer Support Programme

The Peer Support Programme is a pilot project currently being run by SkyWay organisation at the Blue Hut and there has been huge interest from young people wanting to be involved in it. It is teaching the young people involved that they can give something back to their community and become positive role models for their peers. Through the programme, they can show there is an alternative to the gangs many young people will see on a daily basis and provide positive role models to the youngsters in their areas.

The programme has been running since October 2009 in its current form although a pilot project on a much smaller scale was run from March 2009 with 3 peer coaches.

In total there have been fifteen young people involved in the programme so far and their ages range from fifteen to twenty four

Page 184years, although most of the young people involved have been between seventeen and twenty one years.

The young people receive support through the development of an individual learning plan, and as part of this they received an in-depth initial meeting and then monthly one to ones which focus on their progress and development in relation to their individual learning plan. The peers specialise in one area, such as drama or sport, and they report to a specific member of staff who is trained in their area of interest and who can offer them continued support and advice. The peers also complete training which is both accredited and non- accredited.

The peers all complete a ‘train the trainer’ course, and this included units on safeguarding, working with young people, running activity sessions, equality and diversity, and confidentiality and data protection. They also completed an enterprise training programme over 4 days. The peers also complete training on working with young people in relation to drugs and alcohol.

Peers are recruited to support activities across all aspects of SkyWay’s programmes and therefore they have sports peers, media peers (music and film), youth work peers and bike maintenance peers. All of the young people involved receive training and paid work experience in the area they are interested, for example sports coaching, media sessions or youth work. The work that they do is constantly monitored and only once the workers are confident in the young people’s abilities and skills and they have completed the relevant training and have had an enhanced CRB check will they be allowed to lead sessions with other young people.

In addition to this, each peer will complete qualifications that are relevant to their interests and will be identified through their individual learning plan; this could include for example Level 1 or 2 in FA football coaching or Level 2 in Youth Work.

The Peer Support Programme has been increasingly popular with young people and it is currently oversubscribed. Staff at the Blue Hut said that the results so far have been very positive and they have seen a number of the peers grow in maturity & confidence, and the young people involved have developed communication, self reliance, team working and leadership skills.

The Commission members talked to one of the young people involved in the Peer Support Programme who told them he felt it was important to develop young people through the programme as it helps to bridge the gap between the young people and youth workers.

Page 185

Recommendation Three

The Commission was impressed during the site visits and through talking to young people by the range of training and qualifications young people are able to gain through youth centres and activities and strongly support and encourage these opportunities.

The Commission was particularly interested in the Peer Support Programme run by SkyWay organisation at the Blue Hut and its aim to develop young people to lead activity sessions with their peers and younger age groups.

The Commission recommends the Youth Service look at the Peer Support Programme currently being run by SkyWay organisation at the Blue Hut and consider adopting a similar model in council maintained youth centres in Hackney.

999 call re weapon wielding kids on Middleton Road

I cycled through a gang of black kids/youths on the junction of Malvern Road and Middleton Road at 7.20pm this evening (Friday 13 August). One was carrying what looked like a sharp wooden stake several feet long, another had a piece of timber that he was carrying like a club. A couple of them were jogging up Middleton road towards London Fields as if looking for someone.

I think there were about 10 of them - it looked like more were arriving. When I cycled through them they were totally oblivious to me. Whatever it was that had their attention, it was so consuming that there was no need to conceal weapons, there was no need to be aware of periphery human beings like me.

Nothing else happened but when I was safely out of the way I called 999. The person I spoke to said the call wasn't a waste of time. Five minutes later I was cycling back to Clapton via London Fields and I saw a police car driving through the park, then I noticed several police vans parked along the side of the park.

As I turned towards them to see what was going on I passed a group of three girls, I heard one of them mutter "nosey". I turned to look at her and she repeated it directly at me. I asked her if she knew what had happened. I don't think she answered.

I asked the police why they were there and they said nothing had happened... but that they'd got some call. I told them I'd called 999 earlier and asked if they thought it had been a waste of their time. They said that that was probably why they were there, but no, it hadn't been a waste of time.

Hopefully the police got more than one call - I can't believe I would have been the only person to have noticed something like this. Or may be it happens all the time. I saw something similar about a week earlier on Hackney Road, Asian kids on bikes (one with a baseball bat) obviously chasing a couple of black kids up towards the farm. I didn't call 999 then but felt as if I should have done.

Hackney's 'groups of friends' problem. Diane on religion

Today's Hackney Gazette has a quote from Detective Chief Inspector John Macdonald who led the Eddie Thompson murder inquiry. In a piece on page three called "Assassination gun hidden in boy's bag" the Gazette refers to the murderers as "reckless gangsters".

Discussing the history of the gun used in the killing, DCI Macdonald opted for less inflamatory language: "I think that firearm was used by a group of friends as and when they needed it and used other people to hold it." Is he purposefully avoiding the word gang?

A couple of days ago Blood and Property asked whether the 15-year-old carrying the gun used to kill Eddie Thompson might have been the same 15-year-old described as a member of a Vietnamese gang by the Mirror's crime correspondent.


Diane Abbott on religion: The Church Times reports: "Diane Abbott, who was the first black woman to be elected to Parlia ment, said that more people in her constituency in Hackney attended a faith meeting on a Sunday than any type of political meeting; “so I take issues of church and faith very seriously.”

“The lesson for the Labour Party from Christian Socialist history is that we are all human beings,” she said. “We have to stay close to people, and listen and respect people. Politics can’t be about just the next opinion poll, but practice based on values.”

On her website Diane provides stats showing 47% of her constituents are Christians.

Back in February Diane told Blood and Property pretty much the same thing: "A large proportion of my constituents go to church so understanding religion is important to me. Huge amounts of money are being poured into the Christian Party here in Hackney, as your blog has pointed out. This seems to suggest religion may be on the agenda of politicians in the future but it will only really make a difference if candidates can win the support of people outside of their churches as well as within them."

Diane did not give away her personal views on religion and the supernatural when Blood and Property asked - except to say she hasn't had any supernatural experiences (Do Hackney Politicians believe in ghosts?)

But in a 2009 speech in parliament she said: "We have to look at how we work with the Churches. I admit that I am not a regular church-goer myself, but often the only bastion of order, values and boundaries in inner-city areas is the Church."

So she does go to church which is more than we know about Meg Hillier? When Blood and Property interviewed Meg she said: "I don’t really want to talk about my personal situation. It’s not relevant to my job." And on whether or not she believes in ghosts she said: "To be brutally honest I’ve got better things to do with my time than answer questions like that."

Vietnamese gang link to Eddie Thompson murder?

Are these related? This November 2009 story from the Mirror's crime correspondent sounds similar to a recent police statement about the Eddie Thompson murder.

The Mirror story is called: "15-year-old thug caught with a loaded gun used in murder gets just 12 months"

It says: "The youth, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was caught with a loaded Baikal pistol, which had been used in a murder the day before.

"Detectives found the weapon had been fired on at least four other occasions in the previous month."

Sound familiar? In Eddie Thompson's murder a 15-year-old was caught with the murder weapon a day later, it too had been used in other "non-fatal shootings" and the 15-year-old was also given a 12 month sentence.

There was, however, a piece bit of information that set the Mirror story apart from the recent police statement: "The 15-year-old, a member of a Vietnamese gang, had a previous conviction for street robbery."

At the moment Blood and Property has no evidence that this Mirror story is about the same case (Eddie Thompson was murdered in September 2009 this case appears to have been heard a month later).

If these are the same events, then does it raise questions about gun use in Hackney? Did this weapon change hands swiftly between diverse groups or was something else going on?

How many school-age children in Hackney have these kinds of convictions and how have schools supressed gang violence?

Hackney mums let kids carry knives - Diane Abbott

Diane Abbott was the main speaker in one of the last debates in Parliament on gang crime: full transcript here from Theyworkforyou.com


Key points:
Crime statistics - more of a political art than a science
No limits to what kids will do now - stabbing in broad daylight in rush hour (although no mention of the fact that a cop was shot at and then had a gun held at his head last year)
Postcode gangs prevent kids using facilities like London Fields Lido
Negative press and stereotyping
Too few men in Hackney primary schools
Girls in gangs
Gang rape
Disproportionate level of gang violence coming from Turkish/Kurdish gangs
Hackney mum let son carry knife
Witness protection at lower levels of crime needs to be improved - some boroughs not playing ball.

On statistics: "However, as a former Home Office official, I know that it is possible to debate the figures. Such statistics are sometimes a matter of art, rather than science. Fear of gang crime-not just the fear of being the victim, but the fear that mothers have about how safe their children are on the streets-has never been higher in my constituency, despite the welcome drop shown by the statistics."

On what kids will do now: "We all know about schoolboys fighting and, perhaps, about gangs, but what in the culture of this city makes gangs of schoolboys and schoolgirls feel able to stab each other in plain sight during the rush hour? Does that not suggest that we have moved on from the situation 10 or 20 years ago to a very different and alarming situation in which people's loyalty to their gang, their determination to gain respect and their disdain for wider society overrides the caution that kept young people from having knife fights in plain sight, even a decade ago?"

On postcode gangs: "I live on Middleton road in Hackney. One end of the road is dominated by the Holly Street gang-it is the gang next door to me-and the other end is dominated by the London Fields gang. I remember on my way home one evening talking to a young boy who was complaining that there was nothing to do in Hackney. I asked him, "What do you mean there is nothing to do? The council has just built a brand new swimming pool in London Fields." He said, "But you don't understand. For me to walk from here"-we were at my end of the road-"up to the London Fields lido means going into the territory of the London Fields gang, and I just can't do that." One can exaggerate the issue of postcode gangs, but they are real, and they affect how young people, certainly in my borough, feel able to live their lives.

On when the Evening Standard wouldn't cover a celebration of achievements by Hackney kids because none of them were former gang members: When we tried to interest the Evening Standard in the event by saying that it was to be held at the House of Commons, that we would have celebrities and that we would give awards to children who had 11 A*s at A-level, we encountered great resistance. Finally, it rang and asked, "Are any of these young people ex-gang members?" We said, "No", and it said that it was not interested."


Too few men in Hackney primary schools to provide role models: " I have visited a number of primary schools in my constituency in recent months and, with some exceptions, there is an absence of men in the classroom. All the evidence suggests that young black men, particularly-and, I suspect, working class young men more generally-need to see men in the classroom; men taking education seriously. Even if teachers cannot be recruited, men could come and read to them, making a marked difference to their aspirations and their notions of masculinity."

Hackney mum let her son carry a knife: "I was very shocked by one parent whom I saw at an advice surgery. A young boy came in and said to me that he was in trouble for carrying a knife at school. He told me that he had carried it to defend himself and his mother said, "Yes, he did carry it to defend himself and I allowed him to carry it to school to defend himself". The hon. Gentleman has raised a very important point about the role of parents and emphasised the importance of educating parents and working with them. Parents should know that there can be no circumstances in which they should collude with their child's taking a knife to school and I said that to that mother.

Witness protection: "On the question of witness protection, is my right hon. Friend aware that a key issue for some of my constituents is that they need to be moved away from people who might take revenge on them? What are the Government doing to ensure that all London boroughs contribute to the pool of accommodation available in such cases? The problem is that some boroughs are not contributing to that, which makes it hard to move people.

Blood and property: Gangs, Hong Kong and Hackney house prices

Property: Evening Standard story claiming Hackney leading the comeback in house prices: "the firm's £160 million Dalston Square scheme in Hackney “is selling extremely well” with 232 homes sold since the launch in May last year. Only 12 are left."

But the reasons for the sales may not be related to anything going on in Hackney but sales pitches in Hong Kong. Investors Chronicle: "London properties are also proving popular with foreign purchasers. "We are doing a lot of off-plan sales to overseas purchasers," confirms Patrick Law, director of corporate affairs. Following presentations to investors in Hong Kong, sales of apartments in Hackney and Bow have picked up.

Blood: Also in the Evening Standard, Tottenham MP David Lammy says beware self appointed community leaders when trying to tackle Turkish and Kurdish gang problems:

Let us also be clear about the dangers of falling back on "community politics". Too many times in the past, we have worked with self-appointed community leaders because it was convenient to do so. Not only did many of these leaders lack legitimacy, they have sometimes been protagonists of the criminals. Today, "community engagement" must mean just that, reaching out to the community and understanding the concerns people face in their everyday lives.

November 18 - Evening Standard feature on Turkish gang problem.

Enfield is shooting hotspot - Enfield Independent

Gangsters Vs Cops on bikes

A man on a bike pulled a gun on a police officer in Hackney on Saturday and fired (piece in the Evening Standard ):

"The Pc was on patrol with a sergeant in Hackney when they spotted four youths on bikes they wanted to question and followed them.

Three pedalled off but the fourth pulled out a gun and opened fire on the officers. The bullet missed."

According to the Hackney Gazette the incident took place on Greenwood Road, off Dalston Lane (where a mobile police station was set up over the weekend)

This very interesting brief history of Hackney's bike unit (I hope it's genuine) explains that cops on bikes is the best way to combat gangsters on bikes. It also says that overtly taking photos of gangs likely to cause trouble for small patrols generally deterred violence:

"A recent tactic that we have started to employ with considerable success is overt photography of persons believed to be involved in street crime... It has one additional benefit that has been invaluable in looking after officer safety - when a group of suspects tries to interfere in our conduct of a stop, the overt use of the camera causes them to scatter at speed."


The piece also explains that once the bike team had developed a reputation in the area it was less likely for people to try and run away: "A fair number of persons, both on foot and on bikes, elected to try to run away from us at this time. We found that we caught them in these circumstances on over 90% of occasions as a result of the speed of our bikes, our ability to follow suspects through estates and our developing tactics - when a chase started my cyclists would 'starburst' and cover every escape route the suspect might take. Having been in operation for four months, we now find that suspects running away from us are a rarity - it's clear that our ability to catch people has been communicated throughout Hackney."

The team was set up when: "It became apparent that a significant contributor to this problem was caused by youths riding on mountain bikes. These proved very difficult to stop due to their speed and the heavy traffic - both pedestrian and vehicular - in the area."

Will Hackney police be targeting gangs on bikes again? (Hackney police beat bike gangs): "As a result of the operations, 649 stops of youths were made over the four day period, resulting in 42 arrests for a variety of offences including possession of an offensive weapon, burglary, handling stolen pedal cycles, possession of drugs and being wanted on warrant for ABH and GBH. Twenty tickets were issued for a variety of traffic laws."

And is there any relation to a rise in the number of bikes being stolen?
(From the Hackney Gazette):

"Haggerston and Queensbridge are among the worst 10 wards in the capital, according to new figures from the Met Police.
In Haggerston, 237 bikes were stolen between July 1, 2008, and June 30 this year - making it the eighth worst ward in London.
The ninth worst was Queensbridge, where 223 bicycles were stolen during the same period."

Will Hackney schools suffer if contractor folds?

Hackney contractor, William Verry, is likely to go into administration in what Construction News reports "would almost certainly be the most high-profile construction casualty of the recession so far." The Hackney contract appears to have been the last won by the company - in December 2008. Hackney's "Building Schools for the Future" programme proposes rebuilds or refurbishments for six secondary schools and four special educational needs schools.

The councillor who might be able to help is Cllr Rita Krishna, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services.

At the moment this blog is what some might call 'churnalism' - copying everyone else's news. So nothing more to add to this at the moment. Is there another way? Maybe http://www.flatearthnews.net/

So back to the churnalism:

The story of what appears to be another gang killing unfolds in court. Prosecutor says a gang called the London Fields Boys had "violence on their minds" when they allegedly killed 14-year-old Shaquille Smith in London Fields in August 2008.

Hackney Council has successfully prosecuted two home owners for making alterations without planning permission. A report in Planning Resource said: "Both owners have spoken to London Borough of Hackney planning officers and agreed to carry out remedial works to resolve the breach. If this does not happen, the council will prosecute again."

Diane Abbott gets a mention in a Times comment piece: "It's a hard life for women about the House" describing the lot of women MPs, but it doesn't look like anything new.

Old but just for sake of having somewhere on this blog - children's charity, Chance UK wins funding reprieve from Hackney Council.

Diane Abbott's muddled crusade for the unemployed

According to Third Sector magazine Diane Abbott joined a line of bigwigs barking up the wrong tree by claiming that jobless people are losing their benefits if they do volunteering work for charities. Last week Abbott tabled a parliamentary motion on the issue.

So how bad is unemployment in Hackney and is it the same as "worklessness" which was "revealed as a key challenge the borough continues to face" by a council review of the borough's economic and business prospects in January? Witnesses who gave evidence for the same report (mentioned in 19 April blog: Hackney's entrepreneurs are disappearing) said that regeneration could pose a threat to low-end earners because it forced up costs for manufacturing industries.

But the people of Hackney will be glad to know that their MP is worried that they might be prevented form working too long in charity shops. Whether or not she made a gaff in the premise of this issue - that jobless people can work longer for charities - the fact that she championed this issue at all doesn't bode well either for her view of what's going on in the borough, or what she thinks the prospects for her unemployed constituents might be.

East London Advertiser reports a man stabbed to death on Amhurst Road at 9.30am on Monday 27th April 2009.

Hackney man jailed as a member of a gang robbing stores across South East England.

Designs for the Olympic media centre have been called extremely weak: Paul Finch, chair of the London 2012 design review panel, said: "Unless there is a fundamental rethink, then people could be forgiven for wondering why sheds have been removed from the Lower Lea Valley in the name of high quality urban regeneration, only to be reinstated at a much larger scale.

Jobs for three site managers for Hackney social housing refurbishment on a mixture of low rise traditional construction, to 17 stories on contracts on a three £29m contract, here marked "urgent".

Turkish gang problem?

(UPDATE  February 2012): http://bloodandproperty.blogspot.com/2012/02/police-watch-watch.html

(UPDATE October 2010): http://bloodandproperty.blogspot.com/2010/10/turkish-crime-turkish-politics.html

Turkish gang problem in Hackney: According to the Islington Gazette a Turkish Gang called "Bombacilar" may have had something to do with an Islington shooting last month and a shooting in Clapton.

Back in 2006 it looked as if the police had stamped out the gang when its leader, Abdullah Baybasin, was jailed for 22 years. The BBC said he started "a gang of young thugs known as the Bombacilar (Bombers) who spread fear throughout the Turkish and Kurdish community.

"On one occasion, a gang of up to 20, armed with samurai swords, metal bars, pool cues and a gun, forced their way into a Turkish cafe in Stoke Newington. One man had his index finger chopped off by the gang and several shots were fired. Shopkeepers, cafe owners and other small businessmen received death threats and some paid up to £10,000 a year to the extortionists."

A judge was not convinced that the problem would end with the leader imprisoned and imposed a "financial reporting order" saying that: "offences where many of the gang members have either never been caught, and others will be released much sooner than the defendant, can be continued from a prison cell...."

Apparently the gangs listed below are in Hackney - although many of the names suggest Tower Hamlets - but following links (from http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=806 which supplied an updated list of London gangs in September 2008) most of them don't sound similar to this Turkish gang which is included in the list.

7. Hackney
E9 Bang Bang (They have lots of Google)
Haggerston Fields Combined
Holly Street Boys
Hoxton Boys
London Fields
Pembury Estate
Love of Money Crew
Hackney Posse
Springfield Crew
Manor House Crew
August Town Crew
Bombacilar
Legends of Stokie (LOS)
Sea & Mother Square Boys
Tap Dem Crew
Well Street Boys
Yardie Bunch Crew
DNA Boys
L.or.D
Grim Beats Crew
Brick Lane Massive
Cannon Street Rd Posse
Shadwell Massive
Stepney Posse
Bengal Tigers
Bethnal Green Somalians
Devon Road Kruisers
E3 Massive
Elton Man Dem
Bartlett Park
Limehouse Massive
Wilehouse Man Dem
Remand Crew