There are a number of milestones in a child’s progress that middle-class
parents rarely allude to and one of them — as Richard Madeley discovered
last week — is “the first time your son or daughter is mugged”. In some ways
Madeley can count himself lucky, as his 19-year-old daughter Chloe, who had
her phone stolen, is an adult. For many, it happens at a much earlier age.
Mugging has become, as Madeley put it, NFL (Normal For London) and, in fact,
NFACUK (Normal For Any City in the UK).
In the week that the crime was committed against Chloe, another, which went
unreported, was committed against my stepson. Nothing much frightens Ben —
at 14, he is the kind of child who relishes adventure and embraces any
physical challenge thrown at him. His heroes, in no particular order, are
Monty Panesar, José Mourinho, James Bond and Muhammad Ali. He lives at
the scrum of life (he plays flanker in his rugby team) and everything from
his e-mail name (BenGfearless) to his favourite programmes ( Planet Earth
and Jackass ) reflect his intrepid approach to the world.
Last summer, on holiday in Italy, he was thrilled when we came across a huge
snake in the garden of our villa. Before anyone could stop him, Ben had
grabbed a stick and moved towards the creature, before, thankfully, it
slithered away.
“Is there anything that frightens you Ben?” I asked him.
“No, nothing really,” he said
“Not even crocodiles?”
“No, no, not crocodiles. What you do with crocodiles is walk in a zigzag
motion. They can’t turn quickly, you see, and that confuses them. Actually,
I can’t think of any animal that could really scare me.”
But this week Ben encountered animals that nothing he had ever seen on Planet
Earth could have prepared him for; just after dark on Saturday he was
walking towards Stamford Brook Tube station (on the outskirts of
Hammersmith, West London) with a friend from school, when two youths on
bicycles approached them, blocked their way and demanded their mobile
phones. With his usual bravado, Ben told the youths (aged around 17) that
neither he nor his companion had their phone with him. But seconds later the
phone in his friend’s pocket rang, which enraged their assailants. As his
friend handed over the phone, Ben saw one of the youths reach into his
pocket and pull out what appeared to be a knife, and instinctively he
shouted to his friend to run. Thankfully, the boys were only 400 yards from
Ben’s mother’s home and, although the youths pursued them on the bicycles,
they gave up the chase when the boys turned into the suburban street. Ben,
who never cries and is rarely frightened, was sobbing so hard and trembling
so much that it was heartbreaking to behold.
The police were called, but the crime will not find its way on to the next
list of robbery statistics (last year the figures of reported robbery
rose by 8 per cent) because only one of the boys had his phone stolen and he
was, understandably, too intimidated to be prepared to give video evidence
against muggers who might approach him again. Because it wasn’t the first
time that Ben or his friend have been mugged. Walking home from school a
month ago, Ben was surrounded by a group of boys who demanded that he give
them his phone (“You’ve been jacked, nigger,” they shouted at him). Nor is
it our family’s first encounter with street crime. My son, also 14, was
violently mugged earlier this year by a group of youths who were later
apprehended and prosecuted after he gave video evidence. (One of these boys
has subsequently reoffended and is expected to get a custodial sentence.)
In January, the Conservatives — concerned about the vulnerability of
schoolchildren — put a very different spin on the police figures that the
Government published last July. They revealed that the victims of 24,000
robberies last year were children aged between 11 and 16, suggesting that
121 schoolchildren in Britain are being mugged every school day. In fact,
being mugged has become a rite of passage for young males, something they
expect and adjust to as part of their lives. It is so common in urban areas
that, in a neat and ironic turnaround, boys of my son’s age refer to
muggings as “stop and search” (the perpetrators of the crime are usually
looking for mobile phones or iPods).
Now, though, it is not police stopping and searching potential criminals, but
the criminals stopping and searching potential victims. Even more ironic,
mugging is also now referred to as “taxing”, the idea being that the thugs
extract their tax — mobiles and MP3 players — in return for allowing their
victims to walk past them unharmed.
But then it would seem that society has decided that the real criminals are
not the muggers but the motorists who drive their cars around city streets.
The cameras in the London suburb in which Ben was walking are not trained at
the known mugging hotspots, the places where children are regularly preyed
upon. They are trained on passing cars. The crimes these cameras record —
parking in the wrong place or speeding, for example — are a much higher
priority to the police than the real street crime that occurs every day.
When John Reid, the Home Secretary, announced the crime figures in the
summer, he said that he was “determined to reverse the rise in recorded
robbery and I am already taking action to address it”. Yet nothing has been
done to halt the greatest environmental hazard faced by urban children. The
fact that a socialist Government seems so unconcerned about protecting
children from violent crime is enough to make a middle-class mother like me
want to vote Conservative at the next election (something I have never
previously done).
I am not a law-and-order bigot. I do not want to see all boys in hoods (both
Ben and my son occasionally wear a hoodie) locked up or sent to draconian
boot-camps. Nor am I without empathy for those boys who have not had the
start in life that we have been able to give our sons. I have huge sympathy
for young people who have nothing to aspire to but a life of crime. But, to
paraphrase David Cameron’s famous quote about our need to embrace
hoodie-wearing teenagers, I do not want to go hugger-mugger with them while
they assault my children. Rather like Ben, I would rather take my chances
with a cobra or a crocodile.
How to reduce the risk
- Stick to bright, well-lit and busy areas.
- Act confident and look as if you know where you are going.
- Spread your valuables around your body (in your bag, coat, trousers etc).
Try not to be conspicuous about them.
- Talking on your mobile phone, carrying a laptop, or showing off your new
gold ring to your friends all show that you are worth robbing.
- Sometimes it is better to let someone take something rather than to get into
a confrontation and risk injury.
- You are allowed to protect yourself with something you are carrying anyway
(for example, keys or an aerosol), but not a weapon.
- Be aware that your attacker might be stronger than you, or may take what you
are using in self-defence and use it against you. It is often better just to
shout loudly and run away.
- Shout “fire” rather than “help” as it can get more results.
Source: crimereduction.gov.uk
