Parents urge adult presence on streets after JFS pupils mugged

JEWISH PARENTS are encouraging locals in a North-West London neighbourhood to make their presence felt on their streets at certain times of day after three JFS pupils were mugged in separate incidents over one week.

The muggings took place around Ossulton Way, between East Finchley tube station and Hampstead Garden Suburb, where a number of students from both JFS and JCoss schools get off the bus after school.

In the three incidents, the students targeted, all boys, had their phones taken.

Dr Ellie Cannon, who has a child at JFS, told the JC: “On the big main road, Ossulton Way, they’re fine, and then as they go off onto the quiet roads, that’s when they get mugged.”

She said that the school, the police and the Community Security Trust (CST) had all been “fantastic… briefing our children on how to look after themselves”.

She said that she and other parents were encouraging local residents to make their presences felt on the streets between 4.15pm and 5pm in the afternoon, “not as vigilantes or security but as an adult presence, which we know acts as a deterrent against this type of thing.”

She said they had been “leafleting all of our neighbours, we have put things out on social media, local shul groups, church groups, dog walkers”, in attempt “to have more adults on the streets… in this trigger time”.

A spokesperson for CST said the organisation “urged pupils and parents to contact police and then CST, should they suffer or witness anything of this nature, providing as much detail as possible of who the perpetrators are and what they are wearing”.