WHY BRITAIN’’S SUFFERING AN ACID ATTACK EPIDEMIC
PAUL BRACCHI talks to the tortured victims, the impotent police – and a gang member who tells him why he threw drain cleaner in a rival’s face
The young man who meets me at a café in east London does not wish to reveal his true identity, but he’s known in these parts by his old gang name. ‘They call me “Off”,’ he tells me. Why? ‘Because I switched people off, I hurt people,’ he says. ‘Off’ is more than 6ft 2in and is built like a fridge. even sitting — he’s dressed all in black — he is an imposing presence. During his ‘career’ as a de facto enforcer with a ‘crew’ in Newham, he was involved in countless tit-for-tat stabbings, chalking up a string of convictions for violence and serving time in Pentonville.
Until recently, this was the nihilistic world he inhabited. It was epitomised by a shocking event, a little more than a year ago, about which he tells me. Off, who is in his early 20s, had gone to a party where he knew one of those attending would be a rival gang member. he was having a cigarette in the garden when Off walked up to him, holding what looked like a bottle of water.
‘I looked him straight in the eye, then I “douched” him in the face and the screaming started,’ he says, in a barely audible, almost gentle, voice, which belies the brutal nature of what he is saying.
The bottle contained a common domestic drain cleaner bought for a few pounds at a hardware store.
The main ingredient was sulphuric acid. his victim suffered third- degree burns and had to undergo numerous skin grafts.
Acid — dispensed in squeezable bottles — was a weapon of choice for Off and his now former compatriots. It is something that should concern us all, because they are far from the only gang using the substance to maim and destroy lives.
Nor is the barbaric trend confined solely to gang- on-gang violence. Disfiguring, corrosive substances are being used indiscriminately against members of the public in muggings and carjackings.
Over the past few months, there has been a dramatic escalation of such attacks, with the reasons not hard to fathom.
Caustic fluids are cheap and easily available on the high Street. They work quickly and can be thrown from a distance.
Just carrying a gun or a knife is a criminal offence, but — shockingly — there is no penalty if you are caught in possession of acidbased chemicals. ‘It is a win-win situation,’ acknowledges Off.
MEANWHILE, some perpetrators are employing another new tactic to thwart police: squirting acid at intended ‘ targets’ from mopeds. Five delivery riders were ambushed in this way in 72 chaotic minutes in North and east London last week.
Detectives believe they were targeted for their motorbikes.
Moped gangs have become the scourge of the capital. Pedestrians have had mobile phones and jewellery snatched from their hands by thieves on two wheels.
extraordinarily, attempts to tackle these violent thefts are being hampered by home Office guidelines governing the pursuit of such suspects. The rules, placing a greater emphasis on officers to justify such pursuits, or risk being disciplined, were introduced in 2014, following the death of a teenager who lost control of his scooter during a chase.
Suspects make a mockery of the new rules by deliberately removing their helmets as they flee the scenes of crime. They know that the more recklessly they ride, the more likely it is that the chase will have to be abandoned.
The conflation of two previously unconnected crime waves in an hour of mayhem a few days ago has created a growing sense of lawlessness in London and other cities.
ALREADY, in the first four months of this year, there have been 114 acid attacks in the capital. In 2016, the number reached 455 — a 74 per cent rise on the previous year — the majority of them in east London.
Statistically, the most dangerous borough is Newham, scene of the highest number of acid attacks for the past five years. One in four of all such incidents now occur in the borough.
Newham is among the UK’s most deprived areas. It also has a high proportion of young people, with a quarter of its residents under the age of 18 and many of these youngsters — like Off himself — ending up in gangs.
The neighbourhood has dozens of ‘ crews’ modelled on the notorious ‘ Bloods’ and ‘ Crips’ in LA: the ‘ Chad Green Gang’ from Plaistow, the ‘ White Gang’ from Custom house, the ‘Black Squad’ from Beckton, the ‘ Grey Town Gang’ from Canning Town.
In 2012, the Old Bailey heard how three ‘Chad Green’ gang members murdered a Custom house rival simply for riding a bike through ‘their turf’.
Footage recently emerged of young gang members, their faces covered with hoodies and scarves, enforcing their ‘ territory’ in Newham. As a teenager from outside their postcode cycles past, he is dragged off his bike and repeatedly punched in the face, beaten with a belt and kicked.
These are the same kind of young men, with few boundaries and little understanding of the consequences of their actions, who now routinely carry bottles of ammonia or acid alongside their blades. According to the online testimony of one Newham gang member, even their knives are dipped in acid, ‘so the wound doesn’t heal’.
And our own inquiries have established that some of the Newham street gangs have links to organised crime.
‘They use them to do their dirty work,’ said Jermaine Lawlor, a youth violence consultant who set up my meeting with Off and now mentors him. ‘These kids often act as their drug runners or are used to settle scores for them.’
Increasingly, these ‘ scores’ involve the use of acid. According to the charity Acid Survivors Trust International, the UK has one of the highest per capita rates of recorded acid attacks in the world.
In April, 12 partygoers at the Mangle nightclub in hackney were injured after a fight broke out in the venue and acid was sprayed. Model Isobella Fraser, 22, suffered appalling burns to her back and arms.
On the street, the gruesome nickname for acid is ‘face melter’. It is an apt description. Acid can dissolve skin, flesh and bones. An eye or nose can disintegrate in seconds. Often, victims never recover from the psychological damage.
The use of acid was once restricted to so- called ‘ honour’ crimes in the Asian community, to permanently scar women who were thought to have been unfaithful to their husbands.
Some of the most high-profile cases outside the Asian community have also involved women. Katie Piper, the charity campaigner, has undergone more than 250 operations since a former boyfriend arranged an acid attack on her nine years ago.
Victoria’s Secret shop worker Naomi Oni had to wear a silicon face mask after being attacked in 2012 by a female friend who was jealous of her looks.
The most serious cases end up at the St Andrew’s Centre, a specialist burns unit based at Broomfield hospital, near Chelmsford, essex.
In 2015, consultants from the centre published research into acid attacks. It found that victims were mostly men attacked by other men. The increased incidence was linked to ‘gang-related events as younger gang members are becoming more ruthless’. Two years on, it seems anyone is fair game.
Could there be any more chilling proof of this than the events that unfolded in the early hours of Sunday, when a paramedic on a 999 call in North London was flagged down by three men who appeared to be in distress?
SHE stopped — and they immediately pulled bandanas over their faces. ‘ It all happened very quickly,’ she said.
‘One of them threw liquid out of a plastic bottle at me. The window was only open a few inches, but the liquid went on my face, neck and chest. The man was wearing latex gloves, so my first thought was: “Is this acid?” ’
It is unclear what the substance was, but she said it felt hot on her skin and she suffered an irritation. She was treated in hospital and discharged the same night.
Lee elliott, 18, was not so lucky. A night out with four friends in May last year ended in what was described as a scene from a ‘horror film’. The friends had been to a party in South Ockenden, essex, then walked to the station.
They were on the platform when a youth — part of a group of about
20 — got off a train and approached Lee and his friends with one hand behind his back.
Moments later, he produced a Lucozade-style bottle and doused them with the contents.
Lee sustained the worst injuries. As he rubbed his face with his T- shirt, his skin started to peel off. He was admitted to the St Andrew’s Centre and there were fears that the teenager could be permanently blinded.
‘When I was in hospital, I was terrified,’ he recalled when we spoke to him at his home in Tilbury, Essex, yesterday. ‘Both eyes were bandaged up for a couple of days and I was thinking: “What’s the point of living if I can’t see?”’
Thankfully, his skin has healed, although he experiences blurred vision and regularly has to use eye drops and wash his eyes with water to reduce the pain. The mental scars, however, are still raw.
‘It’s hard to describe the effect it’s had on me,’ says Lee, who lives with his mother. ‘It could happen anywhere and that’s what’s scary — walking down an alleyway, or across a field. ‘Whenever I see someone carrying a bottle now, my blood runs cold.’
A 17-year-old from East London, is now serving eight years for the random and unprovoked assault. He had been drinking and taking drugs on the night and was heavily intoxicated. Local CCTV captured him laughing and joking after the incident. Police said he showed ‘absolutely no remorse’.
Another acid attacker now behind bars is pictured on his Facebook page bare- chested, muscle-bound and brandishing a gun. Liam Sibbons was just 16 when the picture was taken in 2013, shortly before he turned up on the doorstep of Tara Quigley’s home in Romford.
WHEN she opened the door, he asked her if she was called Michelle. She said ‘no’ and Sibbons walked off.
Ten minutes later, he came back — this time holding a bottle with both hands. He pointed it at Tara and squeezed it. The bottle contained industrial acid.
Miss Quigley, now 32, suffered burns to her right arm, shoulder, chest, neck and face. Most of the burns went almost all the way through her skin. She had two skin grafts, which have only been ‘85 per cent successful’.
Detectives believe Sibbons, who was from a broken home, was paid to carry out the attack, which could have been a case of mistaken identity. A large amount of cash was found on him when he was arrested, but he has never explained why he did it. He will be eligible for parole in 2019.
‘For me, it’s a life sentence,’ Miss Quigley said this week. ‘People still come up to me and say: “You’re that girl who got burned with acid.” I can’t take my scars off.
‘Whenever I see news of more acid attacks, I think about what I went through and just imagine what these other victims are going through now.’
Among the most recent victims are Resham Khan, an aspiring model, and her cousin Jameel Muhktar who were celebrating Resham’s 21st birthday when acid was thrown through their car window as they were stopped at traffic lights in Beckton, East London. Both suffered lifechanging injuries.
The Government is now coming under pressure to restrict sales of corrosive products. Drain cleaner can be bought for under £5 at stores in newham. One brand contains 91 per cent sulphuric acid. Emblazoned on the bottle is a warning that it ‘causes severe skin burns and eye damage’.
How did Off, the former gang member who spoke to me, end up buying such a dangerous product to take to that fateful party a little over a year ago?
His story is depressingly familiar. One of a large family, his parents, who were born in West Africa, split up when he was ten. By age 14, Off had followed a number of his older brothers into gangs.
‘I wanted to look flashy and cool and lead a hip-hop lifestyle,’ he says. Money from gang-related robberies enabled him to do this.
His size made him a feared adversary. The motive for carrying out the acid attack was revenge.
The rival had got the better of him in a previous fight when he ‘grazed [cut] me up.’
‘I warned him in a text message that the next time I saw him, I was going to change his life,’ Off recalls. A few weeks later, he did.
Does he now regret what he did? ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I do regret it.’
Ironically, that moment of Clockwork Orange-like violence also led to Off revaluating his life.
‘not long afterwards, friends of the person I attacked tried to ambush me in the street. I got away — but I realised this was never going to be over.’
nor will it ever ‘ be over’ for the innocent victims of this barbaric trend whose lives have been permanently blighted. As Tara Quigley says: ‘We are serving a life sentence — without parole.’