Pioneer unit aiming to help stop gangs snaring young
HORRIFIC STABBING OF 17-YEAR-OLD HELPS SPUR EFFORTS TO GIVE GANG MEMBERS A WAY OUT
YOUNG people at risk of getting groomed and ensnared in gangs will be offered a way out in a revolutionary gangs unit which will see the police and a council working closely together.
The new £983,000-a-year gang violence and exploitation unit will see police specialists based at Hammersmith and Fulham council offices. They will share intelligence to give young people a way out or stop them getting involved in the first place.
It’s thought to be one of the few joint units of its kind designed to stop gangs in their tracks, and is entirely funded from section 106 or planning gain money paid by developers for community benefit.
It follows an increase in youth violence over the last 18 months – a lot of it attributed to gangs. They are now involved in the drugs trade rather than turf wars.
Last March Ayub Hassan, 17, was brutally stabbed in the heart in North End Road, Kensington, by a 15-year-old boy over a row about drugs. His killer, who has since been jailed for 15 years, had been known to police and was caught selling crack cocaine and heroin in 2018.
Sue Fennimore, the council’s deputy leader, said she was determined to stop more families going through the hell caused by such violence.
“When I sat down with his mother and she told me what had happened to her son, it would absolutely make your toes curl,” she said.
And she said enough is enough. “I’ve had the experience three times of sitting across the table from mothers and siblings talking about what has happened to their family after a child has been murdered. I don’t want another family to go through this.
“This is organised crime. Gangs are operating as businesses – a business of drugs. “Young people sometimes have no option other than be groomed and coerced – not on my watch.” She said residents also find it “extremely frightening” to see young people getting drawn into drug dealing and selling through “county lines”. They will be able to contact the new unit about young people they are worried about.
Councillor Fennimore, who volunteers working with young people, pledged: “We are going after those people doing the exploitation.” And she said the council “must do everything we can to divert them from gangs.”
Just over half the young people convicted of crime in Hammersmith and Fulham re-offend - that’s more than 41 per of young criminals in London who reoffend and 38 per cent nationally.
And there were 11 young people sentenced to custody last year, up on seven the previous year.
Former borough commander Gideon Springer who is now the council’s head of safe streets said the unit will work to divert young people from a life of crime - by offering them a way out, such as community support from playing football.
He said: “We can spend more time with young people. We can intervene before they got involved with youth offending team.”
The unit will also work with young woman caught up in the violence.
Chief officer for safer neighbourhoods Matt Hooper said the team which includes four gang workers, four anti social behaviour officers and six police will work intensively with young people.
He said: “During lockdown there has been a significant reduction in crime but the offences related to drug dealing haven’t reduced as much.”
He said there were “a lot of tit for tat incidents” and matters escalated.
“We felt there was a need to address the problem immediately.”
We are going after the people doing the exploitation
Councillor Sue Fennimore