The quietness that surrounds you when out on a London street at the first glimpse of daylight, whilst others are dreaming away, can make you feel safe and at ease. You wouldn’t want to walk down an alley-way at night, but it seems that walking down the street in the mornings can now also pose as much of a risk.
Theft and violence to a person on the streets in Islington, North London is indicating a rise, with 110 reported cases being made in the last month.
These threats have hit one local woman, Aaisha Calliste-St Louis who only last week noticed, whilst walking to Holloway Road station at around 6am, that she was being followed.
The station has become a local hotspot for this type of criminal activity for some time. Miss Calliste-St Louis felt that she would be safe at that time as she knows the route and walk “like the back of my hand.” It’s about a ten-minute walking distance from her friend’s house. Confident, knowing that that not many people would be around, she was in total shock when the incident took place.
“I pulled my phone out to ring another friend of mine so that I can have someone to talk to on the way there so that I’m kind of safe. I had not noticed anyone around apart from a couple of boys on their bikes but I didn’t take any notice of it.”
Expecting the journey to be like any other, she was surprised by her attacker coming up behind her on his bike. He grabbed her phone from her hand whilst punching her in the eye. Desperate to get assistance, Miss Calliste-St Louis screamed for help, but no one else was around. “I just couldn’t come to terms with the fact that somebody would assault me like that. Complete disbelief. It just felt so surreal. Even now when I think about it I just feel so shocked. Now I’m a bit paranoid to walk around the streets on my own, no matter what time it is.”
The crime rate in Islington in the last month has risen and reached 0.63% on personal theft on items, and 2.56% on violence on a person.
Luckily, Miss Calliste-St Louis managed to retrieve her phone back after running after the attacker when he swerved on his bike and accidently dropped it on the floor, she was able to pick it up whilst he shouted abuse.
In July 2011 the Territorial policing development programme made a review to cut down on the safer neighbourhood police members throughout 2012. Police cuts been been made in scrutiny since the new proposal for the conservative party by David Cameron has made a 20% drop to be cost saving and may be under political debate as crimes are rising throughout in particular Islington for North London.
Leave a Reply