London Road and The Level

Argus title : Stop talking, start acting

We have read much of recent days about the plight of Brighton’s London Road – beset by shop closures and besieged by alcoholics and heroin addicts, whose behaviour is all too often intimidatory and abusive.

Small traders in the London Road are in the process of setting up a London Road Traders’ Association to demand action from police and council leaders. A meeting between council officers, police and traders is being arranged.

The response by officials may seem positive and timely – until one remembers that the council and police have known about problems in the London Road area for years. Local traders and residents have been voluble on the subject and this newspaper has called for action, not least in this column. Yet as the situation has worsened, there has been little effective action.

David Lepper, MP for Brighton Pavilion, says he has been asking the authorities for months to take action. He said: “I have been lobbying the police and council throughout this year because of the number of calls I have had from residents complaining about London Road. I keep being told the community safety team on the council knows about the problems and is working with the police.”

His frustration is understandable, for police and council representatives seem remarkably complacent. Chief Inspector Laurence Taylor of Sussex Police recently commented: “There are certainly issues in the area and that is why we put our resources down there. But we need to know who, where and when so we can target our resources effectively. We set regular patrols and covert work in the area but it is difficult to know what specific problems the traders are talking about because they haven’t spoken to me.”

Chief Inspector Taylor, unlike the rest of us, has access to up to date and detailed crime statistics. Does he seriously expect us to believe that he doesn’t know that, for example, Forfars bakery has been broken into several times? Or that there has been armed robbery in the locality?

Are the police really unaware that there is open drug dealing by vendors on foot and bicycle, all around the London Road from Francis Street to Gloucester place – to the extent that many old people avoid shopping after midday? Or that several pubs have so far annexed the public pavement that at times local residents can be seen to cross the road rather than pass by them.

Where issues of public order and drug dealing are concerned, it is surely not the job of local residents and traders to find out “who, where and when”, but the business of the police. The police and community safety team should not have needed to be prompted by traders, but should have made inquiries months ago.

It is simply unacceptable for the council’s spokesperson to loftily inform the Argus that: “The partnership work of the city council, the police, the health sector and others has been nationally commended in its success in tackling drug and alcohol-related crime and disorder.” Adding graciously “However, we realise there is still much to do and we are grateful for any information people can give us on substance misuse, crime and antisocial behaviour in the city.”

This is complacent and patronising nonsense. The truth is that some years ago a powerful coalition of traders and residents in St James’ Street and Kemp Town rightly demanded that something be done about the public drunkenness and drug usage which used to be associated with their locality. The police and Council subsequently agreed a series of actions which simply displaced the problem to the London Road.

This was entirely predictable and so begs the question why it was done. My cynical soul suggests it was because St James Street and Kemp Town are: visible to tourists; central to Gay Pride festivities; the home of many sophisticated restaurants and nightclubs; and accessed by many people on high income. London Road on the other hand has historically been the shopping area of Brighton people who live on low incomes.

The brutal truth is that the council’s much vaunted commitment to “diversity” has not extended readily to the unglamorous and unfashionable victims of prejudice and disadvantage such as the elderly, lone parents, the poor and the sick. Few tourists visit the London Road and there are no sophisticated clubs or restaurants – just struggling family businesses and a committed community with its back against the wall.

Though some individual politicians have been deeply committed to the locality, none of the political parties have really listened to residents and small traders. They are so sure that they know what is best for the area that they fail to properly consult, attending to vocal lobbies and powerful interests, failing to seek out those who are voiceless.

The state of the nearby Level provides a stark example. Just recently there have been press releases and letters from both Green and Labour politicians anxious to associate themselves with a campaign to build a new skatepark at the Level. This is despite the fact that the existing graffiti-strewn skate park – largely used by young adult males – has caused major difficulties for the adjacent children’s play area and paddling pool. It also ignores the fact that there is already a new state of the art skate-park on the sea front.

Just over 3 years ago, I wrote in this column about the great damage that had been caused by building a skateboard park inside the Level’s designated children’s play area. I commented then: “The development would have made perfect sense if it had been earmarked for the use of younger children wishing to learn to skateboard or cycle. However, no age restrictions were put in place. This is despite the fact that a little-known byelaw exists banning people over 15 from the children’s play area on the Level – unless they accompany a child.

“As a consequence, the skateboard area has become the exclusive domain of older boys and significant numbers of young men, some in their early twenties. It has become a ‘no go’ area for females and young children, and to a great extent has driven away elderly people who traditionally sat in the adjacent Rose Walk.”

I described some of the destructive behaviour which I had witnessed, from graffiti to drunkenness, bullying and sexual harassment, commenting that councillors and officials preferred to “accommodate the needs of older and adult skateboarders before those of families with young children who have little option but to use their local park.”

I added, presciently it seems: “In this atmosphere of disorder it is hardly surprising that abusive behaviour on the Level has become more widespread. Or that it is now being used by addicts and alcoholics displaced by the public drinking bans in adjacent areas and attracted by the many drugs outlets in the London Road area.”

Consultation with young and vocal adult skateboarders and a few “skateboard mums” is no substitute for genuine consultation with young people – or indeed women and parents.

The Myplace programme, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), will be making grants to support projects across England that are working to create safe places for young people to go, where they can get involved in a wide range of activities and get information and advice.

The funding is intended to help young people, particularly those in deprived areas, take part in positive activities that will help them develop new skills and raise their aspirations. I am at a loss to understand how an expanded skatepark will achieve this.

The council could use the funding for many purposes useful to young people – not least improved facilities for under-resourced victims of bullying and teenage girls and young women who badly need safe services and activities.

I hope that as it contemplates change in the London Road area and funding bids designed to support this, that councillors will undertake genuine consultation with a range of different interest groups.

I hope too that politicians from all party backgrounds will begin to question the siren voices of council officers and some councilors, who may themselves have become part of the problem.

Human Rights in Britain and the London Olympics

Argus title : Cool Britannia? Not with our rights record

I’ve enjoyed watching the Olympics. I still don’t think the Olympic authorities should have approved games in China, because of human rights abuses there, but I must confess to real excitement and a sneaky surge of nationalistic pride when our athletes achieved medals.

I’ll look forward to the London Games in 2012. It’ll be interesting to see what the British organizers make of the challenge. In Beijing the contrast between the closing ceremony of the Chinese and the British acceptance slot was fascinating. As was the case in their opening ceremony, the Chinese chose to make reference to symbols of their ancient culture – and there was no particular emphasis on the city of Beijing.

The British, on the other hand, made no reference to our history and focused not on the country as a whole, but on contemporary London – choosing a London Bus; queuing in the rain; rock music; and football as centre-pieces of the presentation. My husband lifted his head from his newspaper just long enough to comment “So they didn’t show 50 young people being stabbed then?”.

The organizers had obviously made a decision to market London as “cool”, yet the presentation seemed oddly dated. I was reminded of old films of the sixties featuring what was then called “swinging London”. I kept expecting to see shots of Carnaby Street and Mary Quant and to hear Roger Miller’s 1966 pop song “England swings like a pendulum do/Bobbies on bicycles two by two”.

There were no bobbies on bicycles in this display. I guess the UK organisers couldn’t take the risk. In the past, people of other nations may well have had an image of unarmed, helpful British bobbies in big boots and strange hats helping old ladies across the road. However, nowadays they’re more likely to have in mind poor innocent Jean Charles De Menezes shot repeatedly at close range by a police officer while lying pinioned in the London Underground.

Our politicians and the media have been forthright in condemning human rights abuses in China and rightly so. However, I don’t believe our leaders and opinion makers are at all prepared for the international scrutiny of Britain’s social welfare and human rights record which will almost certainly accompany our preparations for the London Games.

British authorities are no keener than the Chinese to see their dirty linen washed in public. A “Visit London” video which was screened in Beijing caused outrage within government and opposition alike, because it contained a brief glimpse of Marcus Harvey’s portrait of Myra Hindley, made from multiple copies of children’s handprints. It was immediately withdrawn. Yet child abuse in Britain is hardly a rarity.
Just this week Detective Chief Inspector Nick Stevens, head of the Metropolitan Police’s paedophile unit, said: ‘There are huge numbers of paedophiles online, surfing the net and looking for child abuse images, at any one time. The problem is far, far larger than anyone is aware of. Ten years ago the Metropolitan Police seized perhaps a few thousand images a year. Now you’re talking millions.”
Vicky Gillings of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), which operates nation-wide to prevent abuse, warned of growing evidence that paedophiles are concentrating on ‘pre-verbal’ victims, who are attractive because they are unable to report abuse or describe their abuser.
Jim Warnock, head of operations at the CEOP, estimated that as many as one in six children – 1.9 million – might be victims of abuse.
Our leaders tell us that violence in Britain is decreasing – yet what we see in London is a carnage of young people, killed by gun and knife crime. We know that at least one child a week dies at the hands of a parent or step parent. And within the last few days we have learned that in some impoverished parts of Britain a baby born now will have a life expectancy of only 53 years, while those living in more affluent areas of the same city can expect to live well into their eighties.
End Child Poverty (ECP), a network of children’s charities and other groups, has condemned the gap between rich and poor, calling it a “huge injustice”. Its recent report “Health Consequences of Poverty for Children” was based on an analysis of government data. It found that children from poor families are at 10 times the risk of sudden infant death as children from better-off homes. ECP also revealed that babies from disadvantaged families are more likely to be born underweight, that poorer children are two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer chronic illness when very young and are twice as likely to have cerebral palsy.
Nick Spencer, who is Professor of Child Health at the University of Warwick and one of the report’s authors, told the Observer newspaper this week: “Poverty is now one of the greatest dangers faced by our children” adding “If poverty were an infection, we would be in the midst of a full-scale epidemic.’
This bleak portrait of British society is confirmed by another recent report in the Observer, this time about a collaboration between fashion magazine Vogue and Kids Company, a south London charity set up to assist children and young people in difficulty.
Journalist Stephanie Merritt wrote of the children: “The majority of the young people who knock on the door…… asking for help do not have a functioning adult at home. Many of the parents are rendered incapable by drugs, some are abusing the children or permitting them to be abused in return for money or drugs. Some of the children appear in states of severe malnutrition and steal because they are starving. Most are not registered with doctors or dentists.”
Camila Batmanghelidjh, one of the founder of Kids Company, told Stephanie Merritt that in her opinion 500,000 young people ought to be on the Child Protection Register, adding grimly that “there is only capacity for 30,700”.
Batmanghelidjh said “We allow ourselves to describe children who present disturbed behaviour as “young offenders”, then we can say: “They made a poor moral choice.” But if your brain chemistry is adapted for violence because of neglect or abuse, you don’t have much of a choice. By labelling them criminals, we say the flawed morality is the child’s and the rest of us get away with not facing our flawed morality in failing to help them. In my experience of working with these children for 11 years, none of them wants to be a criminal.”

It is hardly surprising that, according to UN research, our children are some of the unhappiest in the developed world.

The news of recent days has repeatedly emphasized the connection between financial investment and good results in the Olympics. It’s now acknowledged that it is long term, stable central funding from the Lottery that has made the difference. This provides a valuable lesson from which politicians should learn.

If the government invested properly in welfare, educational and health services and child protection systems with a view to eradicating inequalities and abuse, we could have a very different society, one in which children could be both safe and happy.

We can only hope that in the run up to the Olympics, the scrutiny of the world may help concentrate the minds of our politicians to better support and protect our young people. However, I am not confident.

I keep thinking about the rich pickings to be made from sportspeople and visitors who will flood the capital before and during the 2012 Games – and the market they will create, not least for sex and recreational drugs. I’m sure every major pimp and drug dealer in London is already making plans.

It’s to be hoped that London’s police and politicians have a genuine commitment to disrupt them.

Gypsies

Argus title : Racism doesn’t spare children

My family and I have recently returned from a trip to the Italy’s Lido di Jesolo near Venice, where there are ten miles of near perfect sandy beach and safe swimming in the Adriatic. We lounged by the beach, swam when we chose and ate and drank far too much in our very comfortable hotel. It’s a place we have visited many times before.

The only slight irritation on this occasion was that our somnolent lazing on the sand was regularly interrupted by hawkers selling cheap watches, bags, towels and toys and others offering massages. It troubled us that they appeared both more numerous and more desperate to sell items than they had ever been before.

We returned to Britain to learn that just a week or two earlier, elsewhere in Italy, two child hawkers 13-year-old Cristina and 11-year-old Violetta Djeordsevic had died by drowning, on just such a beach, surrounded by holiday-makers.

The two were part of a group of four children who traveled from a poverty-stricken gypsy community outside Naples to the beach at Torregaveta, west of the city, which is popular with Italian day-trippers. Like the men and women offering their wares on the Venetian Lagoon, the girls went to sell cheap trinkets to visitors and tourists.

The red flag was up and the tourists weren’t swimming. However, for reasons that are not yet clear, Violetta jumped into the water and got into difficulties. Cristina attempted to help her, but tragically both drowned.

The dead children were dragged from the sea by a passer by and surrounded by a curious crowd, but when they could not be revived were simply left on the sand, their corpses laid side by side under beach towels. No ambulance attended.

Photographs of what happened during the hour it took for the mortuary van to arrive, were flashed around the world – and have shamed Italy. As the girls lay dead on the beach, their thin feet protruding from under the towels, Italian holiday makers around them began to return to their leisure activities. There are photographs of them picnicking, applying sun lotion, sunbathing and even playing ball and throwing frisbees.
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported. “Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried away on the shoulders [of the officers] between bathers stretched out in the sun.”
One eyewitness on Italian TV said: “It was very surreal. There was this picture of a typical Italian beach with families enjoying the sun and then just metres away were the bodies of these two children. People were completely indifferent about what had happened.”
Laura Boldrini, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commission for Refugees, commented: “Accounts would seem to suggest that hardly anybody intervened to save this children and even in death there seemed to be total indifference as their bodies lay on the beach while people continued to enjoy themselves.
Crescenzo Sepe, the Cardinal of Naples, condemned the attitude of holidaymakers, saying: “At times turning the other way or minding one’s own business can be more devastating than the event itself…. in the background holidaymakers…appear more upset at the fact their view of the beach has been obstructed.”
He said that Cristina and Violetta “had faced nothing but prejudice in life and indifference in death; an unforgivable truth.”
Laura Boldrini commented: ”I wonder if these people would have behaved in the same way if the children in question were Italian and not Roma?”
It is a question being asked across Italy. Civil liberties groups have pointed out that a Roma encampment near Naples was burned to the ground this year after its inhabitants had been evacuated for their own safety. It was just one of several such attacks.
Italy’s Roma live in discrimination and poverty and their situation has become worse since Silvio Berlusconi’s rightwing government came to power in May. One of Berlusconi’s key partners in government is the National Alliance, a party formed as a successor to Mussolini’s Fascists. Another is the Northern League, a party comprised of individuals whom Dan McDougall of the Observer has recently called “restyled former Fascists, anti-immigrant forces and traditional conservatives.” The League’s leader Umberto Bossi is notorious for having advocated shooting at boats bringing immigrants into Italy.
Berlusconi has ordered the fingerprinting of the country’s Gypsy population, including children. According to Francesca Saudino, a human rights lawyer “The Italian right blames much of the country’s street crime on the Roma, in particular on children sent out by adults to rob and steal” adding: “..many working class people think the Roma no better than animals, and the government is using this xenophobia to win votes and popularity…The deaths of these girls has come to represent something more, perhaps a battle for Italy’s soul.”
Berlusconi has told the European Commission that the children are being fingerprinted to encourage school attendance. Saudino suggest a different reason “There are an estimated 152,000 Roma in 700 camps across Italy and the Interior Ministry hopes to dismantle them all. Thirty per cent have Italian citizenship, but the rest are immigrants, many from Romania and the Balkans. We suspect that the Gypsies are being identified only so that they can be expelled.”.
The European parliament has recently approved a motion condemning fingerprinting as an act of discrimination banned by the European convention of human rights. Catholic human rights organisations have criticised the practice as reminiscent of the Nazi persecution and the chief rabbi of Rome has insisted it must be stopped. Amos Luzzatto, former head of the Italian Union of Jewish Communities, said that the policy recalled “days when I could not go to school, and people would point at me saying: “Look Mummy, it’s a Jew.” This is a country that has lost its memory.”
The British, unlike the Italians, have no strong tradition of fascist activity, but we are very capable of racism and of indifference to the suffering of marginalised groups. It is not so very long since a Sussex bonfire society caused outrage by choosing to torch, not a Guy, but a caravan decorated as a travellers’ home, complete with cardboard figures of women and children it referred to as “Pikeys”.

According to Rachel Shields of the Independent: “Studies in recent years have shown that Gypsies and Travellers experience more racism than any other group in the UK, including asylum-seekers. The most recent Mori poll on the issue revealed that a third of UK residents admitted to being prejudiced against Gypsies and Travellers…”
According to the British Medical Association, the community has the lowest life expectancy and highest rate of child mortality in the UK. Ofsted has also reported low levels of educational achievement and high rates of illiteracy among Traveller children, due to a disrupted education and bullying.
Richard Sheridan, president of the Gypsy Council said “”I don’t think that the situation in the UK has changed much since the 1960s – those ‘No blacks, no dogs, no Gypsies signs’ are not very far away.”
Here in Brighton, the settled community is faced with a decision about where to site a permanent travellers’ site. The Council’s preferred location for a 14-pitch site is at the former BMX track off Wilson Avenue. Labour and Green councillors asked for the decision to be reviewed, but this was not agreed. The matter will now go forward to the Planning Committee, which will make a decision taking into account public representations. The stage is set for major and potentially nasty confrontation.

I have no knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of this particular location and confess ignorance of the planning issues involved. However, the one thing of which I am certain is that our community needs to make provision for well-planned traveller sites which are appropriately situated, resourced and landscaped – not least so that traveller children can receive the education and access to health care which is their right.

All one can ask of members of the settled community is that they make their representations and decisions on a basis of generosity, fact and reason and that they do not allow travellers – especially their children – to become pawns in what could become a very ugly political game.