‘There’s no end to this because the police don’t care and we don’t care’: Inside London’s gang hotspot
London is on track for the worst year of teenage murders on record.
“The people who are in the gangs don’t seem to have any care for life in the way the general public do. They just don’t care,” says PC Jim Hare.
He is part of a Metropolitan Police unit specifically tasked with targeting gang violence in north London.
Twenty-seven teenagers have lost their lives so far in the capital in 2021. The youngest victim was a 14-year-old boy who was savagely killed with a sword. For now, at least, the grim record stands at 29 murders in 2008.
The main reason for this year’s deaths is gang warfare in some areas – hotspots. There are about 200 identified gangs in London. Each known gang and gang member is ranked by the Metropolitan Police by how violent they are.
This list, of course, is kept within the force, but I’m told that of the 20 most dangerous gangs in London, about seven are based in and around Tottenham. This means a handful of the most feared and violent gangs in the whole of the capital live on each other’s doorsteps.
This is the reason we chose to spend six months there, investigating why there were so many gang-related murders this year.
What we found was a tale of tension and division between two very different communities – the people who live there, and the Metropolitan Police.
‘I’m not a gang member, I’m a family member’
Moses showed me some of his tattoos. He pointed at one on his fist which reads ‘FMD’. “That means Farm Mandem, that’s my crew. Cause I’m from Broadwater Farm!”
Moses is very well known on ‘the Farm’. He has lived his whole life there and is equally respected and feared by the community.
I had spent several weeks trying to meet him. He pointed to another tattoo on his arm.
“This one says RIP Mark Duggan man,” he told me. Mark Duggan was shot and killed by a police officer during an operation in Tottenham 10 years ago.
“Mark was my good friend, bro. I’ve got so many memories of this guy. Like many memories, we went and met girls together. We grew up together.
“And then we’re portrayed as criminals, as gang members, as this, as that. But have any of those people that portray us as that ever spoke to us and asked us how we feel as a person?”
So what actually is a gang?
“A gang is a group of street-based young people who engage in a range of criminal activity and violence,” according to the Metropolitan Police’s website.
It continues: “They may also have any or all of the following features: identify with or lay claim over territory, have some form of identifying structure feature, or are in conflict with other, similar gangs.”
It’s the last part of that sentence that really rings true. The conflict between the sheer number of gangs goes a long way to explaining why there have been so many teenage murders in the capital.
In Tottenham and Haringey, for example, there are several high-profile gangs which all border each other.
Corey Newton was a promising young footballer who narrowly missed out on his dream of professional sport. He fell into what he called “street life” as a teenager.
The evidence of his lifestyle is plain to see. He has a large scar under his left eye.
“What’s that from?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he replied. “Don’t worry about it.” Corey wants to move on but I won’t let him.
I persisted: “Come on, what happened? Is that a stab wound?”
“Nah, man,” he said. “Someone hit me in the face with a huge padlock because they wanted my watch.”
He held up a gold Rolex. “But as you can see I still got it,” he told me with a proud grin.
Last year three of his best friends were stabbed to death in separate incidents. Now 26, he told me he’s trying to leave that world.
“Is it dangerous for you to walk about freely in Tottenham?” I asked.
“Let’s just put it like this,” he says, “I could be walking around here late at night, and if certain gang members are out to do stuff to each other on that particular day, and they happen to bump into me, they’re not particularly asking no questions because the younger generation today, they don’t give a f*** about who you are.
“If their bredren has died and they’re coming back to get revenge, it doesn’t matter who the f**k you are, you’re here, innit. That’s it. You’re gonna get it.”
Corey insisted he wanted to leave his past behind him.
As we said our goodbyes, he said: “Thank you for letting me tell my story. No one usually cares about us.”
‘A lot of things happen here but no one will ever call us about it, because calling the police is not the thing to do’
PC Jack Wilson told me this as we drove into the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham. “This place is known for tensions between the residents and the police,” he added.
There are many reasons for this tension.
The relationship between the Met and the community in Tottenham had been simmering for years, but it really broke down in the 1980s.
In 1985 Cynthia Jarrett, a 49-year-old black woman, died from heart failure after police entered her flat in the Broadwater Farm estate.
This led to a mass riot the following day in which PC Keith Blakelock, a riot officer working there, died after being stabbed 40 times by at least two knives and a machete.
Twenty-six years later, in 2011, a local man was shot and killed by a police officer during an operation. His name was Mark Duggan.
PC Keith Blakelock (L) and Mark Duggan
“The two things that everyone talks about around here are PC Keith Blakelock and Mark Duggan,” Inspector Niall O’Neill told me.
He runs the Met’s Violence Suppression Unit (VSU) in Haringey, and is known as “the Guv”. The unit was created in 2020 to specifically target violent and gang-related crime.
“Both incidents have affected policing here ever since. I know the public’s trust here isn’t what we’d like it to be, but we’re working really hard at it,” he added.
I spent several weeks with the unit during a troubled summer of violence. Their job is a difficult one. They are tasked with suppressing violence in an area known for it.
Not only that, but Insp O’Neill tasked his officers with connecting more with the community. Ease those tensions, bridge gaps, form relationships. But that is easier said than done.
While on patrol with the team I asked: “How do the wider community greet you guys when you go into their area?”
“Most of the time, terribly,” PC Hare answered.
“I personally think there’s a huge split in this area between police and the local community, which I don’t know if policing can do more to improve that. As a unit we really try to focus on it because that’s one of the keys to getting people to help us.
“A lot of people here don’t want to speak to us, a lot of the gang members don’t want to speak to us, or even the older community members don’t speak to us because maybe they feel the police are racist or we don’t do things correctly or we do it illegally.
“I’ll be honest, in my short time in the police, I don’t feel like I’ve met any racist police officers. The way we work is completely against that.”
I asked: “Do you enjoy your job?”
PC Dan Freeman replied: “Getting a knife out of someone’s pocket or out of a bag is why we do this. There’s no better feeling that. They’re only carrying that knife for one reason from my point of view.
“I’m not going to lie, right now, it’s the worst time to be a police officer, certainly in my career. The hostility towards police is the worst it ever has been.
“I’ve had my doubts along the way, of course, but we’re here to help people. That’s our job. We’re here to make people safe. And I love that idea.”
‘If you’re a white person then the Met are a police service. If you’re black, then they’re a police force’
Ken Hinds is a community activist in Tottenham, who was there for the 1985 and 2011 riots.
I asked him how the community would respond if police came to the area asking for information on a crime.
“Who the f**k are the police?” was his response.
“If you’re a white person then the Met are a police service. If you’re black, then they’re a police force”
The previous night, I was with the police as they drove into the Broadwater Farm estate for a routine patrol. “This is a completely different place at night. It has a very different atmosphere,” PC Freeman said as the team stepped out the van.
Seconds later, a group of young men saw the unit and run away. “We have runners!” PC Wilson shouted into his police radio.
The group of young men lost them, but two other members of the police unit ran around to the opposite side of the estate.
PC Freeman tackled one of the young men to the ground. “Hands behind your back now!”
He handcuffed him and told him he’ll be searched for weapons and drugs.
Seconds later, two young men gathered around and started watching. Then a third. Then a couple of older members came out to watch. I asked: “Why do they surround you guys?”
Insp O’Neill said: “They’re trying to intimidate us, they think they’re going to stop us doing our job.”
PC Hare continued: ‘You’ve got to be careful around here as the community will just come out from nowhere, asking what you’re doing.”
The community made their feelings clear. The police were not welcome there.
I met local resident, a woman called Paulette Campbell. Her son Marcel, 30, was murdered in a stabbing in 2018.
But Paulette was also at the Broadwater Farm riot in 1985. She told me: “So they locked up all of us black people in there, don’t you think that was gonna build a rage?
“And that rage was bubbling and bubbling and it just exploded.”
Paulette was one of the 359 people arrested and questioned over the murder.
She said: “I was stigmatised by the police when they kicked in my door, arrested me and took me into the station for three days and terrorised me for the death of a police officer I don’t know about, all because I lived on Broadwater Farm.”
I asked Paulette if she would ever forgive the police. “I don’t think so, no,” she replied.
During my six months in Tottenham, I asked everyone I came across for a solution. Here’s what some of them said.
Insp O’Neill: “I think it’s a long-term problem. It’s never going to be fixed overnight. I think we just always have to keep working at it. How do we make that better? It’s with the community’s help.”
Corey Newton: “There will be a solution but I’m not the person to tell you what that is. I might not even live to see the solution.”
Moses, the Broadwater Farm resident: “There’s no end to this because the police don’t care, and the community don’t.”
PC Hare: “There will be a solution to this problem, but it’s going to take for both sides to engage and sort out together.”
Teenage deaths in London in 2021
• Anas Mezenner (aged 17) died after being stabbed on 20 January 2021
• Romario Opia (aged 15) died after being stabbed on 26 January 2021
• Hani Solomon (aged 18) died after being stabbed on 12 February 2021
• Drekwon Patterson (aged 16) died after being stabbed on 19 February 2021
• Ahmed Beker (aged 19) died after being stabbed on 27 February 2021
• Tai Jordon O’Donnell (aged 19) died after being stabbed on 3 March 2021
• Mazaza Owusu-Mensah (aged 18) died after being stabbed on 6 March 2021
• Ezra Okobia (aged 14) died in a house fire (classed as homicide) on 6 March 2021
• Nikolay Vandev (aged 19) died after being stabbed on 8 March 2021
• Hussain Chaudhry (aged 18) died after being stabbed on 18 March 2021
• Levi Ernest-Morrison (aged 17) died after being stabbed on 11 April 2021
• Fares Maatou (aged 14) died after being stabbed on 23 April 2021
• Abubakkar ‘Junior’ Jah (aged 18) died after being shot on 26 April 2021
• Daniel Laskos (aged 16) died after being stabbed on 7 May 2021
• Taylor Cox (aged 19) died after being shot on 9 June 2021
• Denardo Brooks (aged 17) died after being stabbed on 11 June 2021
• Jalan Woods-Bell (aged 15) died after being stabbed on 11 June 2021
• Tashawn Watt (aged 19) died after being stabbed on 26 June 2021
• Camron Smith (aged 16) died after being stabbed on 1 July 2021
• Tamim Ian Habimana (aged 15) died after being stabbed on 5 July 2021
• Keane Flynn-Harling (aged 16) died after being stabbed on 6 July 2021
• Demari Roye (aged 16) died after being stabbed on 11 July 2021
• Stelios Averkiou (aged 16) died on 10 August after being stabbed on 1 August 2021
• Alex Ajanaku (aged 18) died after being shot on 21 August 2021
• Hazrat Wali (aged 18) died after being stabbed on 12 October 2021
• Kamran Khalid (aged 18) died after being stabbed on 28 October 2021
• On Thursday a 14-year-old boy, as yet unnamed, was stabbed to death in Croydon
“I don’t remember feeling this unsafe ever before,” says 76-year-old devout Sikh Resham Kaur who moved to the UK from India when she was 18.
She’s waiting for two men to walk her home from the gurdwara – a Sikh place of worship – at a time of rising fears over physical and verbal racial abuse.
Resham reaches for her walking stick and puts on her shoes.
Sarbjit Singh and Mangat Singh walking Resham Kaur home from the gurdwara
Monty Singh says they are ‘not vigilantes’
“When I came to this country, I didn’t fear for my safety. But now I do – every day. It’s a lot worse now,” she says.
It’s a disturbing admission at a time when some fear Britain’s communities are more fragmented than ever.
It comes as new figures last week revealed religious hate crime recorded by police in England and Wales has reached a record high.
Two volunteers arrive, opening the exit door for Resham at the gurdwara in Smethwick in the West Midlands.
Sarbjit Singh – who works in a bakery – and Mangat Singh – who works at a salad farm – are part of the congregation and walk people to and from the gurdwara on their days off to keep them safe.
With attendance numbers at the gurdwara falling because of safety fears, Sarbjit says it’s something they need to do “until we get a bit of peace and tranquillity back in society and the community”.
“We have to do something. We can’t just sit in silence. And we can’t let the congregation just stay at home,” Sarbjit says.
The Oldbury patrol
Other groups of Sikh men are also taking action – joining patrols along a road in nearby Oldbury where a young Sikh woman was allegedly raped a few weeks ago.
That alleged attack – and an assault on two taxi drivers in Wolverhampton in August – have horrified the Sikh community. Police are treating both incidents as racially aggravated.
Two Sikh taxi drivers were allegedly assaulted in Wolverhampton in August
Monty Singh, who is taking part in the patrols, says they are “not vigilantes”.
“We need to make it crystal clear that we’re good people, we’re just trying to do the right thing and support our community,” Monty adds.
Pervinder Kaur is the vice president of the gurdwara.
Pervinder Kaur said before the summer people felt safe, but racial abuse is being emboldened
She believes racial abuse is being emboldened after a summer of demonstrations outside hotels housing asylum seekers and renewed debate about immigration.
“People are more verbal about it now. They are not scared of the consequences,” she said.
A sense of vulnerability is common among minority communities and security measures have also been stepped up at mosques around the country.
Iman Adam Kantar said ‘the Union Jack is our flag’
Friday prayers at the Rumi Mosque in Edmonton, north London
Imam Adam Kantar from the Rumi Mosque in Edmonton, north London, said: “Many people are now telling their children not to be outside after certain hours.
“Their [husbands], they prefer to go shopping instead of their hijab [wearing] wives and spouses.
“We have to engage with the wider community and prove that we love this country and its people. The Union Jack is our flag.”
What Britain’s fragmented society has in common is fear among minority communities – even if the causes are different.
Rabbi Josh Levy, the co-lead of Progressive Judaism, has spent years trying to advance interfaith dialogue.
He said: “Single individual(s) or small groups can cause a huge amount of pain and distress.
“There are lots of really great examples of community cohesion around the country. But generally, there is definitely a sense of fragmentation. And whether it’s driven by political concerns or what’s happening internationally.
“We’ve got huge work to do in taking the work that happens on a national level and bringing it into local communities.”
Rachel Reeves has been warned that firms face a “make-or-break moment” at next month’s budget.
The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) urged the chancellor, who is widely expected to announce tax hikes in November’s budget to fill a gap in the public finances, to steer clear of increasing levies on businesses.
Ms Reeves raised taxes by £40bn last year and the BCC said business confidence had not recovered since.
“Last year’s budget took the wind from their sails, and they have been struggling to find momentum ever since,” BCC director-general Shevaun Haviland said.
She said firms felt “drained” and could not plan ahead as they expected “further tax demands to be laid at their feet” when the budget is delivered on 26 November.
“The chancellor must seize this moment and use her budget to deliver a pro-growth agenda that can restore optimism and belief amongst business leaders,” Ms Haviland added.
“This year’s budget will be a make-or-break moment for many firms.”
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The BCC also called for a reform of business rates and the removal of the windfall tax on gas and oil introduced by the last government.
In its submission, the industry body outlined more than 60 recommendations, including the proposal of further infrastructure investment, cuts to customs barriers and action on skill shortages.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced Labour would aim to approve 150 major infrastructure projects by the next election, with Labour already pledging to support expansions of both Heathrow and Gatwick airports – another of the BCC’s requests.
While the Treasury would not comment on budget speculation, a spokesperson insisted Ms Reeves would “strike the right balance” between ensuring funding for public services and securing economic growth.
She has vowed to stick to Labour’s manifesto pledges not to raise taxes on “working people”.
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Household spending on the wane
The BCC’s plea to halt further tax rises on businesses comes as retail sales growth slowed in September.
“With the budget looming large, and households facing higher bills, retail spending rose more slowly than in recent months,” Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said.
“Rising inflation and a potentially taxing budget is weighing on the minds of many households planning their Christmas spending.”
Total retail sales in the UK increased by 2.3% year-on-year in September, against growth of 2% in September 2024 and above the 12-month average growth of 2.1%, according to BRC and KPMG data.
While food sales were up by 4.3% year-on-year, this was largely driven by inflation rather than volume growth.
Non-food sales growth slowed to 0.7% against the growth of 1.7% last September, making it below the 12-month average growth of 0.9%.
Total retail sales in the UK increased in September compared to the year before. File pic: PA
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Online non-food sales only increased by 1% against last September’s growth of 3.4%, which was below the 12-month average growth of 1.8%.
“The future of many large anchor stores and thousands of jobs remains in jeopardy while the Treasury keeps the risk of a new business rates surtax on the table,” Ms Dickinson said.
“By exempting these shops when the budget announcements are made, the chancellor can reduce the inflationary pressures hammering businesses and households alike.”
Thousands of homes fitted with insulation under a flagship government scheme now need major remedial work, or risk damp and mould, the public spending watchdog has warned.
A damning report by the National Audit Office (NAO) said “clear failures” in the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme to tackle fuel poverty and pollution had led to low quality installations and even potential fraud.
It blamed incompetent subcontractors and weak monitoring and government oversight for the issues, which in extreme cases could cause fires.
Fuel poverty campaigners warned the system had “let cowboys through the front door”, saying it must be fixed to bring down energy bills and keep people warm.
Almost all homes – some 98%, affecting 22,000 to 23,000 properties – fitted with external wall insulation under the ECO are affected, the NAO said.
A further 29% of homes with internal wall insulation – around 9,000 to 13,000 dwellings – also face major issues that need fixing.
A small percentage of homes – 6% with external insulation and 2% with internal – put people in immediate danger, such as poor ventilation that could cause carbon monoxide poisoning, and electrical safety issues that could start fires.
ECO is a scheme that obliges energy companies to pay for energy efficiency measures in vulnerable households out of consumer bills.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said ECO is “important to help reduce fuel poverty and meet the government’s ambitions for energy efficiency”.
But “clear failures in the design and set-up” had led to “poor-quality installations, as well as suspected fraud”, he added.
‘Gaming the system’
The report says the reason things had gone so badly wrong could be down to work being subcontracted to individuals and firms who are not competent or certified, uncertainty over standards, and businesses “cutting corners” or “gaming the system”.
The energy regulator Ofgem last year estimated businesses had falsified claims for ECO installations in between 5,600 and 16,500 homes.
That means they could have claimed between £56m and £165m from energy suppliers – ultimately paid for by bill-payers.
More than 20,000 homes are said to be affected. File pic: iStock
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Martin McCluskey, the government minister for energy consumers, criticised the “unacceptable, systemic failings” that had affected thousands of families.
He added: “We are fixing the broken system the last government left by introducing comprehensive reforms to make this process clear and straightforward, and in the rare cases where things go wrong, there will be clear lines of accountability, so consumers are guaranteed to get any problems fixed quickly.”
The government urged households to take up the free audit that will be offered in a forthcoming letter, and said installers would be forced to remedy the issues free of charge.
However, insulation has the potential to vastly improve homes, analysts pointed out.
Jess Ralston from energy think tank ECIU said: “The majority of households that have benefitted from insulation schemes have lower bills and warmer, healthy homes, particularly during the early years of the gas crisis when the UK’s poor quality housing stock was one of the reasons we were so badly hit compared to other European countries.”
Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “Insulation and ventilation, when done properly, are among the safest and most effective ways to bring down energy bills and keep people warm.”
But the report had revealed a “system that has let cowboys through the front door, leaving thousands of victims living in misery and undermining public trust”.
Sue Davies, Which? head of consumer protection policy, called it “a damning indictment of a failed scheme, where poor oversight has allowed rogue traders to cause huge damage to people’s homes and lives”.
She said the government must take swift action to rectify the damage, as well as ensuring “there is no repeat of this scandal by putting in place robust consumer protections and effective oversight”.
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