Nurse starts petition to improve safety in park

MORE than 2,000 people have signed a petition to install lights and cameras in a Birmingham park after a teenage girl was sexually assaulted on her way to work.

The nurse who started the petition, resident Kristina RichardsMcDonnell, says she would even be willing to raise the funds for the changes herself – but she wants the backing of the council first.

It follows the attack on an 18-yearold woman in Selly Oak Park in the early hours of March 31. The park, which has just one CCTV camera and a handful of lights is a well-used a route for medical workers on their way to the nearby Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Kristina, a nurse of 15 years who has passed through the park countless times on her way to work, said something needed to be done to protect women who want to use the park. “Obviously we work shifts at the hospital, so we start at 7am in the morning and finish around 7.30/8pm of an evening. So usually when we’re walking through it’s dark, especially in the winter,” she said. “And the path that we use to get to the hospital, in particular, has no lights on it at all.

“In the last month or so there’s been a lot of crime – a lot of bike snatches, handbag snatches, mobile phones being taken – and I don’t know if they’ve all been reported.

“So I started the petition thinking

I’d get a few people and maybe something would come of it. The number of signatures and the comments has really given an indication of how many people are also concerned about this.”

Kristina has already had support from her local councillor, Julie Johnson (Lab), who will be submitting the petition to council next week, with famous faces such as UB40 percussionist Norman Hassan also sharing the petition online.