{"id":1189300,"date":"2026-09-06T08:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T08:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1189300\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T08:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T08:19:16","slug":"we-feel-abandoned-by-police-in-crimewave-say-kings-heath-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1189300\/","title":{"rendered":"We feel abandoned by police in crimewave, say Kings Heath residents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Working on a busy high street, staff at Subway in Kings Heath, Birmingham, are used to dealing with tricky customers.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Teenagers leaping over the counter to steal entire trays of crisps and cookies, however, is not something they were prepared for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The fizzy drinks fridge has been ransacked numerous times over the summer, the front door and windows smashed. Customers who were unfortunate to witness the attacks have been verbally abused, with one also having his bike vandalised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve had a number of staff leave recently,&#8221; one worker says. &#8220;They should not have to come to work in fear.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Along the road at Greggs, the gang has rushed in to steal armfuls of food. On one occasion, a female worker who tried to lock the doors to stop them was assaulted by a teenage girl.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A convenience store has been targeted so often they have to keep the doors locked all evening, the manager says as he scrolls through CCTV images of thefts and vandalism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At Coustis hair salon, where hairdressing siblings Tina Bartlam and Antonio Constantinou have been for 40 years, the windows are boarded up after being smashed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kings Heath is known for its good schools, independent shops, lively music and art scene and strong community spirit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But in recent months, the actions of a few have caused many to feel unsafe and unsure of who is in control. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Working on a busy high street, staff at Subway in Kings Heath, Birmingham, are used to dealing with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1189301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":["post-1189300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-birmingham","tag-birmingham","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117223120351929460","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1189300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1189301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1189300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1189300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1189300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}