{"id":456569,"date":"2025-09-28T00:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T00:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/456569\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T00:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T00:01:12","slug":"crime-and-no-punishment-in-khans-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/456569\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime and no punishment in Khan\u2019s London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of us trapped in Mayor Sadiq Khan\u2019s low traffic neighbourhood scheme are now obedient, resigned. We expect a car journey of under a mile to take 40 minutes. We don\u2019t hope for anything more. On Sunday, around five o\u2019clock, my son and I stuck fast in Dalston Lane, but as we settled down to wait in a mist of carbon monoxide, there was a commotion up ahead. Down the wrong side of the road, horn blaring, lights flashing, came a Mercedes G-wagon, matt black with that handy snorkel up the side, the favourite ride of north London\u2019s gangsters. It was interesting how calm everyone was about it, how unsurprised. A souped-up tank of a car coming at us head-on, and no one shouted or beeped. Each car in the queue ahead pulled seamlessly to one side, like the teeth in a well-functioning zipper. They don\u2019t shift like this for ambulances or police cars any more.<\/p>\n

We all know who drives the G-wagons. There are two rival drug gangs in north London, the Tottenham Turks, aka the Tottenham Boys, and their rivals, the Hackney Turks, aka the Bombacilars. In May last year, the Tottenham Boys attempted a hit on the Bombers and a nine-year-old girl was caught in the crossfire, shot in the head as she ate ice cream just a short walk from my house. And the Tottenham Boys got away with it. Only the getaway driver, a non-Turkish stooge called Javon Riley, was ever arrested, found guilty this summer of grievous bodily harm and three counts of attempted murder. The Sun newspaper did a big feature on the gangs: \u2018Inside the Turkish drug lords\u2019 medieval London turf war, with shootouts and soundproof torture cells, leaving cops terrified.\u2019 When Riley was asked by the police to provide the names of gang members, and of the hitman whose bullet hit that nine-year-old, he refused. He feared for his family. The Turks are too ruthless and too effective.<\/p>\n

The G-wagon blared past, faded away, and we law-abiding cars crawled our way to Kingsland Road, where we were careful not to speed up. If, in the euphoria of a clear-road moment, you drive just 4mph over the 20mph limit, you\u2019ve had it. That\u2019s a \u00a3100 penalty charge notice and three points on your licence. Then there are fines for pausing in the wrong place, for turning into one of the increasing number of restricted zones, for doing a U-turn. There are cameras every-where; the eyes of the state in the sky. Not for the Turks though. They do as they please. As I drove, I imagined all the PCNs piling up on the marbled hall of some gated mansion in the Edmonton area, all the court summons swept up, thrown away. It\u2019s not two-tier justice or two-tier policing, it\u2019s gaslighting.<\/p>\n

Just to enrage myself, I like to play a sort of police Pelmanism, where you pair a nasty crime that\u2019s gone entirely uninvestigated with another minor infraction that\u2019s been diligently, exhaustively policed. The speeding, opioid-dealing of the Turks vs minor parking misdemeanours; the virtual violence of \u2018hateful\u2019 tweets vs the real violence on real streets. Lucy Connolly, Allison Pearson, Graham Linehan: police diligence knows no limits when there\u2019s absolutely no threat to anyone.<\/p>\n

My favourite recent Twitter case revolves around a journalist, Greg Hadfield, who last year tried to warn the Labour party that one of their own ex-MPs was posting pictures of penises on his X account. Hadfield tweeted a screenshot of one of the tweets with a comment suggesting that the Labour party should have a word. As a result, Hadfield was charged himself, for passing the picture on. His crime was to \u2018send by a public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message or matter\u2019, and he has just found out that he\u2019s lost his appeal to have the case dropped and must go to trial. The CPS made a \u2018not unreasonable\u2019 decision to prosecute, said senior district judge Paul Goldspring.<\/p>\n

\n

There are cameras everywhere; the eyes of the state in the sky. Not for the gangs though<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not unreasonable! All Greg did, as far as I know, was try to prevent indecency and obscenity. I\u2019d pair his crime in my mind with all the offensive, indecent, obscene and menacing matters that I see as I pass police-free Finsbury Park station on an average evening \u2013 for instance, on Friday, a group of young men that looked like proper trouble: black clothes, black masks, circling like jackals. The Nextdoor app confirmed it: \u2018If you have teenage children around Finsbury Park station, please tell them to be vigilant as there are around 30 youths masked up, robbing and violently attacking local kids.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Hope the police are aware,\u2019 read one comment. \u2018They are about as useful as a chocolate teapot,\u2019 read the next. \u2018Why not report someone\u2019s hurt feelings and they\u2019ll soon show up?\u2019<\/p>\n

Round the corner, the usual mental case was standing and shouting with his trousers down, groin at eye level for a nine-year-old in a car. Violent attacks on passing children and public nudity \u2013 that\u2019s menacing and indecent, Judge Goldspring. If the police just walked up and down past Finsbury Park tube all day, they\u2019d be earning their keep.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\t\t\u2018I\u2019m cautioning you for moaning about police overreach.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

I try to shield my son from the absence of policing. I want him to believe that there\u2019s a robust and vigilant army of bobbies between him and criminal chaos. \u2018Just youngsters having fun!\u2019 I say to him blithely as I lock the car doors in the Finsbury underpass. \u2018They wear masks because they\u2019re paranoid about germs\u2026 and that man? Well, darling, some people do just forget to put their trousers on.\u2019<\/p>\n

On the main street that runs perpendicular to mine, there\u2019s been a spate of burglaries, a youngish man smashing in through basement windows. We know it\u2019s the same man every time because there\u2019s footage of him in action on the Ring doorbell cameras. One neighbour offered the video to the police, but was told they couldn\u2019t use it, that actual footage of the crime being committed wasn\u2019t good enough evidence. See? Gaslighting.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tEvent
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpeaker Series: An evening with Charles Moore<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tBook now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those of us trapped in Mayor Sadiq Khan\u2019s low traffic neighbourhood scheme are now obedient, resigned. We expect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,188,393,4884,257,529,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-456569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-police","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115278989904351274","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456569","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=456569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}