Family of 16 Romanian beggars set up home ... under a London f lyover
SHELTERING under the bleak concrete buttresses of a flyover, a Romanian family set up home after moving to Britain.
The 16-strong group are camping by one of the country’s busiest roads after travelling 1,500 miles from their homeland.
Oblivious to the danger, two five-yearold girls with group play on their bicycles just yards from roaring commuter traffic. The East Europeans live alongside a Wickes warehouse and two petrol stations below the A406 North Circular Road by the Barking roundabout in East London.
The extended family have been sleeping in cars or on mattresses laid out on the concrete since they arrived in the UK around two weeks ago.
The men are said to regularly wander the car parks of nearby stores where they pester customers for work – offering to do any building, plumbing or painting and decorating tasks.
The women have been begging around a nearby Tesco and on local streets in attempts to gather enough money to eat.
They have even resorted to pleading with a nearby burger van for free food after earning just £4 a day. Maria Florescu – the group’s only English speaker – yesterday said the family came to England hoping for a better life but are now desperate to earn enough money to buy tickets to return home.
‘We came here to work but it is very difficult because we have no home address here,’ said the 27-year-old.
‘Now we cannot afford ferry tickets back.
‘It’s really noisy sleeping here, we just want to go home and not come back. We are trying our best but what can we do?’ However, locals are sceptical about their claims. One woman who works nearby said the men, whose convoy of cars include a BMW, are often seen with £50 notes and appear to be in no rush to leave the country.
Others said the group are rude and ‘aggressive’ when approached, leave litter around their makeshift home and smoke under the cover of a petrol station.
Raj Patel, who works at the Tesco store, said: ‘They come in here four or five times a day, usually buying water or chocolate and alcohol as well. Sometimes they come and beg outside the door and sit on our bench drinking alcohol.
‘In the early mornings we have elderly customers coming in and they complain when they see people sleeping outside.’
A unnamed worker at a nearby petrol station added: ‘There is now a lot of rubbish lying about. Before they came it was tidy. They come in in the mornings to use the toilets, where they wash themselves.
‘When the toilet isn’t open they go round the back to pee.
‘They seem very happy there. I can’t see them leaving. I have no idea where they get money from but they seem to have it. Some act as if they are minted.’
Other locals claim the family are just the latest in a long line of Eastern Europeans who arrive by coach and then make home in tents, cars and caravans while they pester residents and businesses for work.
One man who owns a takeaway van added: ‘They go around begging for work constantly and if that doesn’t work, they ask me for free food. I can’t help them any more, it’s putting me out of business. It hasn’t just been the last two weeks. There have been people coming and going for three years.
‘They have tiny kids playing near the road. God forbid what would happen if they chased their ball into the road. The cars fly down there.’
Last month, Romanian migrants who had been living in 28 dilapidated cars by a retail park in southeast London for more than a decade were finally moved on by police. They had been sleeping near a B&Q on the Old Kent Road largely undisturbed until the Mail highlighted the plight of beleaguered residents.
‘Tiny kids play near the road’