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Sadly, knife crime is common in London.
A friend of mine was drugged by a guy he tried to pick up in a bar, and driven around various cashpoints where his account was emptied. The kidnappers used his fingerprint and phone to get access to his accounts. He did actually get the money refunded by the bank.
My nephew lives in the capital, and no longer feels safe to wear an expensive watch.
(I escaped years ago, and would hate to live there now.)
I feel for your nephew 🙁
I spent years travelling on the tube with my engagement ring twisted not to show the stones in it, no point in looking for trouble.
@Alex G, that’s a horrible thing to happen to your friend, but I think more appealing to thieves than holding up someone at knifepoint. Fairly easy to explain away as drunk person withdrawing cash from ATM as well, if anyone did question it.
I rarely buy anything expensive, and don’t drive a flash car these days, it’s intensely liberating to think that you’ve not really got much that anyone would want to steal! Probably my major worry is someone hacking my airline/hotel accounts and using my points, lol.
My Asian friends had jewellery stolen at knife point in east London.
Couple of instances of similar threatening while withdrawing cash near East Ham.
Colleague’s partner lost mobile in central London, broad gate circle in broad daylight. Snatched while she was walking looking at the mobile.If people want to claim there’s very little crime, it’s their choice. Heads in the sand until they are impacted.
One of the best things I ever did was move out of London.
You don’t realise how bad somewhere is until you’ve moved away.If people want to claim there’s very little crime, it’s their choice. Heads in the sand until they are impacted.
It’s not “head in the sand” but the reality. There is actually very little crime but when one event gets posted and reposted then regurgitated again and again it creates a false impression about what is actually happening on the ground.
The other week on another site I’m on someone mentioned crime on the NY subway and brought up the Bernard Goetz case as though it was recent. That event happened in 1984.
This does not diminish in anyway the impact of crime has on the individual victims but exaggeration of crime levels does them a disservice as well.
As someone who has lived in Zones 1-2 in Central London for 17 years now, and I am in my mid 30s, touch wood I have never been the victim of crime and neither have those close to me.
Yes there is knife crime and gang related crime, and petty thefts, but this literally happens anywhere in the world. Not that I am excusing it, but the level of crime is no better in the other major Global cities in North America or Europe.
Some of you Londoners must be living in exclusive oasis or just living in denial (we’re not talking about a river in Africa).
I am regularly in London despite moving out years ago. Every single time I visit, there is always something unpleasant to behold on the journey from Euston or Marylebone to my end destination.
Be it an actual act of assault / fight or simply just a bunch of chavs being abusive and threatening passers-by.
Every. Single. Time.Maybe this is normality for some of you so you are desensitised to it.
Go and stay somewhere a bit civilised for a couple of weeks and then notice the difference.
I know I have.Maybe this is normality for some of you so you are desensitised to it.
Go and stay somewhere a bit civilised for a couple of weeks and then notice the difference.
I know I have.You don’t even need to go somewhere. Just take the tube one day. Then a national rail next day even on same route. It’s like 2 different worlds.
Difference of opinions. I grew up in the countryside 1 hour outside of London, some may call it “civilised” compared to the city, but despite being incredibly beautiful, I find it terribly boring. Same goes for a lot of the rest of the UK, in my opinion.
Who cares if people have become desensitised to what’s going on around them. It is up to individuals to choose to live where they want and we should all respect eachother for that, and not berate people for their choices.
There are towns and cities in the UK with much worse problems than London (comparatively speaking), where many people on this forum may choose to live. It’s their choice/up to them… and if they like it, great… very happy for them.
I avoid the tube like plague, especially at the weekends or during rush hour. I’m lucky that I can drive to workplace easily. The other day I had to take the tube and the lilibeth line to LHR and back, and felt like the luckiest person for not getting hurt or abused by a gang of teenagers during the trip.
It was absolutely disgusting and scary, I must say.
But that’s not the problem.
Problem is that they can get away with it.Wife raised an official complained to the Met last month for witnessing bullying. Guess what happened at the end?
And there ARE crime statistics. I don’t know how reliable it is to compare London or England to other countries as there are many elements at play. Yet one thing is certain. It is getting worse and more people get away with it.
Whether it happened to you or your mates remains irrelevant.
I used to lived in Zone 1 and 2, for years, and never had any issues whatsoever. If you’re not street smart and scared of anyone wearing a hood, or making noise on a train, maybe a capital city just isn’t for you!
I’ve lived in London for over 40 years and have never been a victim of crime nor have I witnessed a crime apart from in the media.
In Rome in 1989 my handbag was taken from the floor by my feet – very inconvenient as it was NYE and all my travellers cheques were in there – luckily the Amex office was open the next day and we had the cheque numbers separately and about 15 years I was nearly a victim of a street crime in Athens in the crowd for the changing of the guard but luckily I felt something and shouted thief and my purse miraculously dropped to the floor beside me and perpetrators slipped away in to the crowd.
Maybe. I spent long years living in central Amsterdam, Paris and Brooklyn in addition to London. And did my best to develop some street smartness.
The point wasn’t it wasn’t safe, but rather it is getting worse. There is a big difference between the two.Or I’m getting old, which is more likely.
I used to lived in Zone 1 and 2, for years, and never had any issues whatsoever. If you’re not street smart and scared of anyone wearing a hood, or making noise on a train, maybe a capital city just isn’t for you!
Yes, I find some of the comments seem oblivious to the fact that London is no different to any other big city. One just needs to have one’s wits about one – if you are walking in a daze with earphones and looking at your phone then you make yourself vulnerable as you do if manifesting bling. I have travelled on the tube for maybe forty years as it’s the most efficient way to get round town during the day and it’s just fine, comparing favourably to conditions in other cities.
As for the crime statistics mentioned above, unfortunately teenagers/gangs represent most of the awful figures.
I’ve seen the BTP, station staff and TOC staff do a catch and arrest operation on a train whilst at a platform at a London mainline station. The on board passengers were kept safe and criminals arrested. All very neatly done.
I used to lived in Zone 1 and 2, for years, and never had any issues whatsoever. If you’re not street smart and scared of anyone wearing a hood, or making noise on a train, maybe a capital city just isn’t for you!
Yes, I find some of the comments seem oblivious to the fact that London is no different to any other big city. One just needs to have one’s wits about one – if you are walking in a daze with earphones and looking at your phone then you make yourself vulnerable as you do if manifesting bling. I have travelled on the tube for maybe forty years as it’s the most efficient way to get round town during the day and it’s just fine, comparing favourably to conditions in other cities.
As for the crime statistics mentioned above, unfortunately teenagers/gangs represent most of the awful figures.
I don’t think posters are oblivious to the fact that there are other big cities with crime, we are not naive.
I think it’s because the title of the thread is ‘Rampant knife crime in London’.
Maybe not with knives, but still think you’re FAR more likely
to suffer some incident in, say, Barcelona than central London.In this thread: oblivious Londoners who seem unaware that London extends beyond zones 1 & 2.
I am pretty surprised to see that
– many do not check the crime statistics accross major cities in Europe, petty crime and assault particulary,
– many do not seem to realise the trend/increase in London that is higher than the other major citiesAs I argued, statistics cannot be entirely relied, but nor the personal experiences.
I moved to London in 2007 and things have definitely changed since then, particularly since the supposed party of law and order has been in power and has confidently defunded all public services (including the police, which seems bizarre for a right wing party to do…).
It’s fairly rare to become a stabbing victim if you’re not in a gang (unless you’re unlucky to be chosen by an aspiring gang member for an “initiation”), but the amount of fare evasion, shoplifting and phone/valuables snatching has increased exponentially. So much of it goes unreported. Some of you may remember I had my gym locker broken into last year too.
I suspect Labour will need a David Blunkett-type Home Secretary again, because the level of impunity with which a lot of these low-level criminals operate is pretty frustrating.
Yes, I find some of the comments seem oblivious to the fact that London is no different to any other big city.
But London wasnt as bad as ‘any other big city’ in the past. It used to be safe.
Where does it end? “Its not as bad as Barcelona…” “Maybe not as bad as NYC..” “Surely not worse than Mumbai..”Agreed, I have no confidence in the shadow home secretary for this.
my exact point.
downward comparison is the worst answer to any problem.
Yes, I find some of the comments seem oblivious to the fact that London is no different to any other big city.
But London wasnt as bad as ‘any other big city’ in the past. It used to be safe.
Where does it end? “Its not as bad as Barcelona…” “Maybe not as bad as NYC..” “Surely not worse than Mumbai..”The last Labour administration passed some very useful legislation and created bodies such as Youth Offending Teams which were extremely successful in tackling, well, youth offending!
In the 2000s the police tied themselves in knots reducing crime stats by any means possible (as brought to public attention by former Met bobby James Patrick). I was always exasperated by this obsession with numbers, which don’t mean anything much in reality. Sure enough, when the Tories were elected in 2010, they joyfully seized on these paper reductions to decimate policing budgets and numbers, and were then really surprised when crime started to go up once more 🙄.
If you wonder why the police don’t solve much crime, consider this: Less than 20% of what the police deal with is actual crime – as in things like theft, assault, etc which is what people tend to expect the police to deal with! The other 80+% is made up of all the social ills you can think of – people with mental health or substance misuse issues, missing persons, neighbour disputes, anti-social behaviour and so on.
If you can’t get hold of a police officer when you need one, it could be because they are sitting with a distressed and agitated person waiting hours for a mental health assessment, or filling in a risk assessment form because teenagers have been threatening one another via social media.
Also, in London, they’re increasingly tied up keeping the lid on demonstrations with none of the tools their European counterparts have, like tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets!
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