‘The Ely community doesn’t deserve this’ – church leader
ACHURCH leader in Ely fears the unrest on Monday night will tarnish the suburb’s reputation, which it has tried so hard to repair ever since the bread riots of 1991.
Canon Jan Gould, the vicar at The Church of the Resurrection in Grand Avenue, spoke after the violence in the wake of a serious collision in Snowden Road in which two teenagers lost their lives.
Described as a “large-scale disorder” by police, the disturbance lasted more than nine hours and saw around 100 to 150 people gather near the scene of the crash. Cars were torched and missiles – including fireworks and concrete blocks – were thrown at police officers who stood behind riot shields as they blocked one end of the street.
The riot echoed those of three decades ago, when hundreds brought the city to a knife edge in an alleged dispute over a loaf of bread. For four consecutive nights, from August 30, 1991, Ely, in Cardiff west, became a hotbed of arson and turmoil as rioters claimed the streets.
Petrol bombs and stones were launched at police after what officers said was a dispute between neighbouring shopkeepers in Wilson Road over the right to sell bread.
Now Canon Gould, who has been the vicar at the church for 17 years and has been living in the heart of Ely for around nine years, fears the latest riot will ruin the the progress made to Ely’s reputation over the decades.
“[Ely] is not a bad community at all. The people here are wonderful people. Back in 1991 there were riots here and that gave Ely a really bad name – they lived with that reputation for years and years,” said the 59-year-old, speaking on Tuesday afternoon.
“My big fear and my big sadness is that what happened last night is going to take us back to that image of Ely that we had after the ’91 riots. And all the good stuff that goes on here is going to be completely ignored or looked over.”
She said her initial reaction to the unrest was “absolute shock”. “It was awful to see the video images – cars burning and that seething anger – just awful. I really feel for the community because they don’t deserve this.”
But she said anti-social behaviour had been bubbling away in the suburb for years and it would worsen during the lighter evenings in the summertime. She described witnessing young men on motorbikes and scooters, wearing balaclavas, riding into oncoming traffic “at full speed”, and tearing up the grass as they raced across parks.
“It’s been low-level dysfunctionality. But you can see it’s just been getting worse and worse,” she said.
“I actually did an interview on Radio Wales maybe two or three months ago – precisely because we were doing a programme about antisocial behaviour in Ely... I said then: ‘I think it’s only a matter of time before this erupts into something much more serious.’ And here we are, it’s happened.”
The vicar also said she felt the “real sadness” was that people used social media to “whip up” the rumour that the police had caused the accident.
South Wales Police are investigating after CCTV emerged showing a bike being followed by a police van moments before a crash which led to the deaths of Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and 15-year-old Harvey Evans.
“Actually talking to residents today, people were saying how angry they were that the police had been blamed,” said Canon Gould.
Asked about the community’s reaction to the unrest, she said: “There is an overriding sense of sadness... there’s certainly a degree of anxiety as well.
“People are really anxious that it might happen again tonight, or any other night this week.
“For example, we run a music school here at the church on a Tuesday afternoon, that finishes at six.
“And we’ve had to cancel it today, because parents were anxious to be walking home at six o’clock in the evening with their children, because they didn’t know what the situation would be.”
Canon Gould said the incident had reminded her of a hit-and-run tragedy in the suburb involving a paranoid schizophrenic, who killed a local mother outside Ely fire station with a van in October 2012.
“It was a devastating thing for the
community... but the thing that came through loud and clear in that tragedy was just about how amazing this community is... I have confidence that that spirit that got them through that tragedy will also get them through this tragedy,” she said.
“My real hope is that the community will just stay calm through this whole thing and not respond with vigilante behaviour. Because it’s possible they might find out who some of the people were that were rioting, and might take the law into their own hands... we really don’t want that to happen. We need to let that police investigation run its course.”