Community fearful after second incident in just days

PEOPLE living in Swadlincote have been telling of their fears after two incidents in the town, one of which left a teenaged boy dead.

Benjamin Orton died on Saturday evening in an alleyway at the side of the Odeon cinema, in The Pipeworks retail park, in Coppice Side, Swadlincote, just before 10.40pm. He was found to have stab wounds.

In a second incident another teenager is said to have suffered stab wounds after an incident in a park in the town. A 19-year-old man remains in hospital in a stable condition following this incident in Eureka Park which happened shortly before 8pm on Tuesday.

Now people in Swadlincote have shared their concerns, saying the town is usually quiet and a friendly place to live, and the two cases have left people very worried.

Clare Chalmers said: “Nobody has said too much about it to me about what happened. I know very little about it but my son rang me and said that he saw the air ambulance.

“Other than that I’ve not heard a lot of talk of it. Having had children go through being a teenager, it’s such a worrying time.

“You worry about them being out anyway without all of this happening. My children are past that stage now but it’s a worrying time. You do worry generally, never mind with all this going on.

“They want to be out and about with the whole situation recently. I would like to see a bigger police presence but that’s not easy either. There probably will be that now for a while.”

Another shopper, who did not want to be named, said: “I only moved here 12 years ago and then it was a very quiet place and you very rarely saw a police presence. Now there’s a police presence all of the time.

“I’ve got young grandchildren and I’m terrified what world they are going to grow up into. What’s it going to be like in 10 to 11 years time?

“All I’ve heard from parents is them telling their children if there is an altercation to please walk away and they were trying to drum it into them.”

Another shopper said: “I’m definitely surprised this has happened as it’s a nice town and it’s quiet. We’ve never had anything like this over a few days.”

Karen Winson, store manager at the Lighthouse Shop, said: “It’s really frightening. I was at a friend’s house and we could hear all the sirens so thought something must have happened.

“Then her phone rang and we heard what happened. It’s really worrying as it was only 8pm and my parents live not far from the [Eureka] park. It’s worrying times really.

“I hope that as a community we can pull together. It’s horrific, frightening and wrong. Where does it end?”