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| ‘Gang terror could have
been averted’ |
Fights blamed on lack of funds
RESURGENT gang violence in south Camden could have been avoided
if councillors had followed youth workers’ advice and continued
funding an innovative peace project, it is claimed this week.
Last week the New Journal revealed how youths had fought with baseball
bats, table legs and knives in Somers Town, Regent’s Park and
Fitzrovia – little over a year after councillors hailed the
end of gang clashes in the south of the borough at a Town Hall ceremony
which itself ended in a scuffle.
Recent fights have seen more than 40 armed youths clash in Ampthill
Square, Somers Town. Two youths needed hospital treatment after
a brawl in Whitfield Street, Fitzrovia.
On Tuesday, Abdul Hai, who negotiated last year’s fragile peace
between youths from Drummond Street, Euston, and Cromer Street,
King’s Cross, warned: “If the resources had been there
since then we probably could have worked with these youths and made
a difference before the latest fights happened.”
Mr Hai, a youth worker at King’s Cross Brunswick Neighbourhood
Association in Marchmont Street, led a year-long project throughout
2003 that brokered peace between ringleaders on each side.
But he said a new youth worker employed to bridge divides between
a growing number of teenage gangs had only been appointed in the
last two weeks, more than a year-and-a-half after the peace project
ended.
He said: “We did not get the £157,000 funding approved
from Comic Relief until last November and it has taken almost a
year to appoint the right people to carry on the work. We recommended
carrying on our work in our original report but it has taken this
long for that to happen.”
One youth worker warned in a report last year: “After a few
months I know the young people will fall into their old routine,
and if that does happen the turnaround could be a lot nastier because
they are a lot more informed and stronger in themselves now.
“Funding is needed to continue this work. It is key not to
lose focus. This needs to be at the heart of the council’s
service delivery strategy and needs to be seen through to the end.”
The long-running Cromer Street versus Drummond Street feud is believed
to date back to at least the summer of 1999, when youths fought
regularly in Regent’s Park and King’s Cross.
Up to a dozen clashes in each of the subsequent years saw youths
armed with samurai swords, crowbars and knives competing over gang
territory.
But Mr Hai said rival gangs from Fitzrovia, Camden Town and Bloomsbury
are now as big a problem. He estimates there are up to 70 involved
in each, with a handful of ringleaders known to youth workers.
He added: “These teenagers have very little that is positive
in their lives. There are problems of poverty, health, overcrowding
and so on, and they need something positive to focus on.
“We are hoping to appeal to them through sport, residential
trips and other activities, to show them something outside the small
part of Camden they know.
“Often these people do not know why they are fighting. They
are following on from the mistakes of the previous generation but
it is stupid. They are ruining their chances in life.”
A Camden Council spokeswoman said: “Camden Council has been
extremely supportive of the King’s Cross Brunswick project
and value the work done to calm youth tensions in the King’s
Cross area.
“The recent disorder, although obviously concerning for residents
and particularly other young people, has significantly reduced from
the type of problems we encountered some years ago between rival
youths.” |
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