THE FEARLESS MUM PATROLS taking on street gangs to keep their children safe
But why are the police so toothless that it took women as old as 73 to cut muggings?
TINA COLETTA was walking down her High Street with a fellow mum when she spotted something worrying. Two older youths either side of a bewildered schoolboy; one with an arm draped over his shoulder, the other talking closely to him.
She instantly recognised it as the prelude to what’s known as a ‘hugger mugging’, in which attackers pretend to befriend their target before demanding money, phones and even the victim’s house keys and address — a tactic designed to maximise fear.
Tina didn’t turn a blind eye or call the police. Instead, she went over to confront them.
‘I should probably have felt scared,’ admits Tina, 62, a transcriber for Oxford University. ‘They were both bigger than me, but I was just intent on stopping them. They were in expensive tracksuits and trainers; there was no way they were his friends.
‘I kept a distance but asked them what they thought they were doing.
‘We were probably the last people they expected to challenge them. They slowly dropped their arms from the boy, stared at us and slipped away across the road at a trot.
‘Their victim, who was 12, was very shocked. We made sure he got home safely, but he was lucky it ended so quickly.’
This was Tina’s very first shift as part of Enfield’s ‘mum patrol’ — a courageous army of volunteers trying to keep the area’s children safe following a wave of violent attacks.
A largely middle-class market town, Enfield in North London is known for its green spaces and good state and private schools. But like many such areas across the country, the threat of violence is ever-present.
Children — mostly boys, often as young as 11 — are being mugged as they walk home from school, forced to hand over their phones, wallets or even expensive trainers. But the mothers who patrol Enfield High Street after school, clad in hi-vis and carrying walkie talkies, are having a significant impact.
According to official figures from the Metropolitan Police, in the first year of the scheme — from March 2019 to March 2020 — there was a startling 48 per cent decrease in youth-on-youth robberies in Enfield.
There was a fresh spate of attacks when schools restarted after the pandemic but, overall, muggings have been reduced. The month before the patrol started, in February 2019, there were 17 muggings, for example, but in February 2023, there were just two.
The motivation of these fearless mothers is clear: protecting children. Many of their own children have themselves fallen victim.
Unbeknown to Tina, while she was preventing her first ever mugging, her own youngest son was being robbed.
She says: ‘As we rescued that young boy, my son was waiting at the bus stop on the way home from his sixth-form college. Some e older boys approached him and took his phone and Oyster card. I found out when I got home and was horrified. He could have been stabbed.’
Tina’s elder son has been held up at knifepoint, too.
The attackers are often local teenagers. But some muggings are carried out by terrifying gangs in balaclavas, sometimes on mopeds and wielding machetes.
Enfield’s mothers are not alone in taking action.
Shockingly, even leafy Richmond — the safest and one of the wealthiest boroughs in London — now boasts a group called Mothers Against Muggings, set up after a spate of them several years ago.
Private security forces are also being hired by residents to tackle a rise in anti- social l behaviour and thefts.
In London’s swanky Belgravia, - Mayfair and Kensington, , worried parents can sign up to o a service called My Local Bobby, which replaces ‘bobbies on the beat’ with uniformed security it officers. For anywhere from £30 to £100 a month, these ‘bobbies’ patrol exclusive streets and will even walk children safely home.
Its CEO David McKelvey says: ‘We see massive reductions in crime where we patrol. If clients are worried about their teenagers walking through a park or down an alleyway, we can accompany them.’
Of course, not everyone can afford private security — and this is where the mum patrols come in. Dads and grandfathers take part, too.
In Enfield, the group’s founder Emma Rigby, 45, says it’s not just about muggings: ‘ We approach unfamiliar children and break-up fights. County lines drug gangs are recruiting in Enfield, so we keep an eye on youngsters at risk of that.
‘If we feel in danger, we call in local officers. But mostly we can manage it. We’re not scared.
‘The kids who are a problem might swear at us or flip us the finger, but mostly they are scared of us as they know we have links to their schools. They are more scared of their teachers than the police.’
EMMA, who is mother to Jackson, 15, and Meghan, 12, started recruiting volunteers in 2019, after Chris Lamb, headteacher of all-boys school Enfield Grammar, begged for her help. As someone who runs an online platform called Love Your Doorstep, building connections across local businesses and organisations, she was seen as having strong links in the community.
Chris Lamb says: ‘In early 2019, we had nine boys attacked. They are easy targets as they know not to fight back. The muggers, as I understand it, would often come in from Haringey on the train after school, and do a circuit, sometimes getting £3,000 to £4,000 worth of phones in a few hours from children from all the nearby schools.
‘My school banned smartphones and now only allows children to bring in old Nokia phones worth about £10.’
March of that year saw a peak in robberies and muggings across England and Wales, according to the National Crime Survey.
In Enfield, things were particularly bad. Over the previous year, the borough saw 1,198 muggings, and 7,954 violent crimes, one of the highest rates in London.
Emma — like nearly everyone I speak to — links the rise in violent crime to a dramatic reduction in police presence.
Since 2010, 108 police stations have been closed across London. The borough of Enfield has lost two stations, leaving just Edmonton Station, a 15minute drive from the High Street.
More than 200 police and community support officers have been lost from the borough over the past decade. So when Emma suggested an alternative, parents rushed to sign up.
Anyone can set up a scheme like this. Volunteers are not trained by the police, but run their own safety courses. They are non- confrontational and call police if required.
Over the past four years, the Enfield patrol has gone from strength to strength. It is now 60-strong, and members share a sense of camaraderie fuelled by barbecues and drinks events. Tina was one of the first to sign up for the scheme, which her sons jokingly call Paw Patrol, after the children’s cartoon.
The eldest to join the group is Glenda Hunter, 73, a former nurse who moved to Enfield 40 years ago. Glenda — who has two granddaughters, aged 12 and nine — now patrols three times a week, giving up time she used to spend at the theatre.
She says: ‘When I first moved, this was a nice quiet village, but over time it changed. There was lots of trouble and robberies, but I think it’s now a bit better.’
Another is Juliette Doggett, 55, a
film and Tv extra who has twin teenage boys. She was inspired to join when she realised many of their friends had been mugged.
‘it shocked me to my core,’ she says. ‘i was so angry that their innocence was being taken away. it was heartbreaking.’
Now, Juliette patrols twice a week — and she has seen some extraordinary incidents, including a teenage girl wielding a hammer and a boy with an iron bar.
‘They were shouting that they were going to beat someone up, and about 30 teenagers had gathered around them filming on their phones.’ Juliette approached the girl, but saw she was so enraged, she called the police.
She adds: ‘i directed the public away and spoke to witnesses. The police came quickly as i told them she had a weapon.’
Juliette identified the girl and a crisis was averted.
Meanwhile, even though they stand at 6 ft 6 in, her 16-year- old twins Baden and Jack were mugged outside Enfield train station in april 2022.
Baden says: ‘We were approached by a gang of about nine men in balaclavas. They asked for money, and initially i thought they were joking, but they then pinned me to a car and asked if i wanted to be stabbed. it was terrifying.’
Two of their friends managed to run off, while three of the boys were forced to hand over their money and phones.
Baden adds: ‘it was shocking, and surreal. We were upset. i became much more cautious about going out. it could have escalated. We were lucky.’
What do they think of their mother patrolling the streets?
Jack says: ‘i have so much respect for her for doing it, as do my friends. i do worry about her. it’s still not safe, but the mugging rate is down, which is incredible. i understand police are busy, but it might be better if they upped their patrols.’
Few of the mum volunteers hold out much hope of that.
a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police says: ‘Police regularly work with community groups to keep young people safe including this initiative in Enfield. Our schools officers across the borough retain regular contact with this group and take forward any issues that require police involvement.’
The volunteers have even attracted funding from the London mayor’s office. The scheme is being replicated in some of the UK’s wealthiest areas. Richmond in South-West London has one of the lowest crime rates in the city. Yet in 2018, robberies rose 114 per cent, with many attributing this to the closure of the Richmond Police Station in 2017.
in response, Felicity Barkus and Barbara Lingle- Elliott set up Mothers against Muggings.
MOTHER- of-two Barbara, who works in recruitment, says: ‘So many boys were being mugged. One had been attacked on the green with a knife held to his throat.
‘These were boys we had known since they were four, that we’d fed fish fingers to on play dates. But they had now reached the age where they were being targeted.’
determined to help, the duo began approaching headteachers and the police.
Barbara adds: ‘ The police had no idea. No one was reporting it, because people knew nothing could be done. and because the police were so stretched it was quite clear they didn’t have enough resources to deal with it.’
The group began giving talks in schools, telling children how to stay safe. in the summer, they organised patrols by local youth leaders on Richmond Green.
Barbara says: ‘in that first year, we reduced muggings by more than 50 per cent. They crept up again post-Covid, but the current rate is still below the 2019 figure.’
in Richmond at least there is a campaign — led by the local Liberal democrat MP Sarah Olney — to re-open the station and bring back a visible police presence.
in the meantime, mother- ofthree Felicity, a chartered accountant, says the patrols bring some reassurance. ‘Our teenagers need independence, but at least now we know they are safer. We want to support the police, but the officers often get diverted into the city to deal with protests.’
Understandably, there is anger and frustration. as Felicity says: ‘We pay one of the highest council taxes in the UK, but we no longer have a police station.’
She says she doesn’t want to point fingers but adds: ‘ We all have to work together to keep our kids safe. We can’t leave basic law and order like this to the police any more.’