POLICE hatched a plan to use a court order to ban a crack addict from returning to dangerous drug markets just months before her body was found chopped up, dumped in a suitcase and left in a stretch of canal, a crime conference heard on Tuesday.
Nasra Ismail, 27, (pictured) was a familiar face on the streets of Camden Town and King’s Cross before her gruesome murder in April 2004.
The Somalian’s mutilated body parts were fished out of a stretch of the Regent’s Canal in Islington. A man is awaiting trial for her murder.
It emerged on Tuesday that officers hoped they could free her from her addiction and a life of crime by moving her away from Camden’s notorious drug zones using a restrictive Anti-Social Behaviour Order (Asbo). But although her name appeared on a 50-strong police list of troublemakers considered for a banning order, Ms Ismail’s case was not considered a top priority compared to dealers and prostitutes, and had not reached court by the time of her death.
PC Dylan Belt – one of the longest serving officers in King’s Cross – said that it is possible that an Asbo would have changed Ms Ismail’s lifestyle, got her away from London and ultimately saved her life.
He said: “Asbos break a cycle of behaviour. People who are vulnerable often find themselves in the same situation as other people who are vulnerable. Asbos take them away from that so they do not have the same temptation.”
PC Belt was speaking at a two-day Eurocities conference hosted by Camden Council which saw policy advisers from ten European cities review the Town Hall’s prolific use of Asbos in a series of meetings and tours. Delegates heard that two other women on the confidential Asbo list also died before their cases came to court. Their faces were flashed before delegates on a giant overhead project during PC Belt’s hard-hitting presentation. The deaths came in neighbourhoods along the Camden and Islington border that would normally become a no-go zone under an Asbo.
PC Belt said: “You can reasonably ask can Asbos save lives? All three of these women would have been banned from coming to this area and they wouldn’t have had the same contact with drug markets.”
In contrast, police said a prostitute who was once regularly arrested for offences in King’s Cross has settled down after being banned from Camden. The woman – known only as Ms Y – has gone into further education and is free from drugs. She could become the first person to have their Asbo torn up under a new review of Camden’s banning orders.