At 12.40pm on February 10, a 13-year-old boy entered Kingsbury High School in Brent, north-west London, and stabbed two pupils in the neck. One victim was the same age, the second a year younger. The story made headlines around Britain as police, politicians and all those connected with the school tried to understand how someone so young could have committed such an act.
Yet not everyone was surprised. For as one local resident told The Mail on Sunday, the attempted double murder – fortunately, both victims survived – was the culmination of a ‘fortnight of terror’ in the beleaguered borough, which also includes areas such as Wembley, Willesden, Harlesden and Neasden.
On January 31, a 50-year-old woman was stabbed to death in Willesden. Witnesses recalled Amaal Raytaan banging desperately on neighbours’ doors before being fatally wounded in the street. The killer escaped on one of the capital’s notorious e-scooters. Ms Raytaan’s 25-year-old son was later charged with her murder.
Then shortly after 9pm on February 2, a woman was treated by paramedics in Neasden following a suspected hit-and-run attack. Later that same night, a man in his 40s was taken to hospital with significant head injuries from a brutal assault.
The carnage didn’t stop there. The following day, a five-year-old boy suffered life-changing injuries in another hit-and-run, while on February 4, a 41-year-old man was left fighting for his life after being struck by a vehicle.
A 13-year-old boy entered Kingsbury High School in Brent, north-west London, and stabbed two pupils in the neck
Police investigators at a property in Willesden following the death of a woman there
Six days later and the double stabbing at Kingsbury High School brought a truly miserable chapter in Brent’s recent history to a close.
But for more than 350,000 people who live in the borough, the truth is that crime and thuggery are part and parcel of everyday life.
Government figures reveal that recorded instances of anti-social behaviour are 18 per cent higher in Brent than the London average, while drug-related crimes are a shocking 35 per cent higher.
Brent also beats city averages for weapon possession, violence and sexual offences.
It is one of the most deprived boroughs in the capital with more than 14,000 people out of work. As many as 20 per cent of adults have no qualifications – not even a single GCSE – while child poverty sits at a deplorable 41 per cent.
Perhaps it’s no wonder that, last year, Brent was named the worst place to live in London.
Last week, The Mail on Sunday pounded the filthy pavements – stained red with ‘paan’, a betel nut stimulant which is chewed then spat out by South Asian and Chinese addicts – to try to understand what has gone so horribly wrong.
What follows is not so much a picture of decline as a portrait of defeat, with residents and business owners speaking of their sense of fear and isolation living in an area scarred by deep sectarian divides – where even the most well-meaning citizens find their lives blighted by gang violence, petty theft and drugs.
The Methodist Church in Harlesden is a prime example. Once a bulwark for the community, a place of worship and belonging, the property is now closed off by a line of austere metal fences.
Beyond the barricade and taped to the brick wall of the church is a police sign declaring that the forecourt has been closed to the public because of anti-social behaviour. Leading me through the steel defences, an elderly parishioner explains that the problem has been years in the making.
‘There were dealers and bad people who were coming in here and hiding drugs under the stones,’ she explained, pointing out a number of paving slabs in the forecourt that had been deliberately ripped up. ‘And here too,’ she continued, pointing to a smashed window.
The London borough of Brent, where crime is just one symptom of a systematic problem encompassing everything from mass immigration to high deprivation
‘It was awful, as though the church had been taken over. People were too scared to come to the evening services.’ Even more concerning, a small room next to the church is used by the Little Angels nursery. Drug dealers operating at the front door of the nursery was the final straw and the church began proceedings to get a court order permitting it to erect the fencing which surrounds the building today.
‘The congregation is slowly coming back,’ the parishioner concluded. ‘But it may be some time before people feel completely safe and who knows when we will be able to take down the fencing and be proud of our church again.’
Back on Harlesden high street, where piles of rubbish outnumber shoppers two to one, 59-year-old Angela Smith spoke of her regret at moving to the area to start a family 27 years ago.
‘It’s depressing,’ she began with a sigh. ‘Nobody talks any more. That’s the main thing. I walk down the street and don’t recognise anyone. When I first moved here, you knew your neighbour. You could meet people – whether it be out shopping or in the pub. Now it’s just gambling shops, dodgy barbers and ethnic food places.’
Angela is right that Brent has quickly become one of the most ethnically diverse places in London. As one Londis convenience store in Willesden declares on its fascia: ‘Portuguese, Brazilian, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Italian, Filipino, Vape.’ Everyone is catered for here.
In the 2021 Census, more than 65 per cent of Brent residents identified as Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME), while just 15 per cent identified as White British. The year before, Brent was named the London Borough of Culture by mayor Sadiq Khan. According to City Hall, it was an opportunity to ‘unite communities’ by way of ‘a digital music festival and visual arts programme’.
There’s not much sign of unity today. With the numerous different ethnic communities in silos, there is little effective integration.
White people make up more than 40 per cent of affluent Queen’s Park, for example, while BAME residents – notably of Indian and Somalian heritage – make up 88 per cent of Wembley Central and more than 80 per cent of neighbouring Alperton.
‘Just look at the amount of rubbish everywhere,’ continued Angela. ‘People just throw stuff on the floor here. These are people from countries where there’s different rules. Sometimes no rules. They have no respect for our way of living. There are even people who go to the toilet outside. British people are afraid of speaking up about it. It doesn’t feel like the same country it was ten years ago.
Beyond the barricade and taped to the brick wall of the church in Harlesden is a police sign declaring that the forecourt has been closed to the public because of anti-social behaviour
Drug dealers operating at the front door of the nursery was the final straw and the church began proceedings to get a court order permitting it to erect the fencing
‘I’ve been followed at night. I’ve stopped going out so much. I’d never drink and go out now, it feels too unsafe. I avoid buses. All we hear are cases where women are raped or schoolboys mugged.’
‘When I’m gone that will be it,’ Angela concluded, looking wistfully down the neglected high street. ‘There will be no English people here at all. Nobody to care about this place.’
Walking further down the high street, it is telling how many shops selling low-value products have large signs plastered in their windows warning of 24-hour CCTV or police protection. Pak’s Hair and Cosmetics has a sign declaring that only one schoolchild is allowed in at a time.
‘Sometimes the kids come in and they can be anti-social,’ the manager Asad, 29, said.
With slicked-back black hair and a clipboard to hand, Asad couldn’t be prouder of the shop, where he has been in charge for three years. Despite being friendly with many of his customers, he is deeply concerned about the mayhem convulsing the high street, particularly after dark.
‘There are drugs everywhere,’ he continued. ‘You can’t walk safely down the street at night. It’s just part of life. Well, I live here, so it’s normal to me, but I know really that it’s not normal.’
No wonder Asad ensures that there are always at least two men working alongside his female staff.
Further east towards Stonebridge and defeatism is replaced by fear. For it is here that over the past two decades the Thugs of Stonebridge have been engaged in gang warfare with the Church End Brigade, their respective territories separated by a railway line and a short stretch of the A407.
‘It’s about drugs and respect. A lot of nonsense over postcodes,’ explained one local in the Stonebridge Estate. Perhaps overly familiar with local gang lore, he did not wish to be named.
‘Young boys just imitate their elders and then get stuck in that lifestyle. They carry knives because they’re scared of getting stabbed themselves.
‘It never ends well. I’ve seen loads of people go to jail or be killed. It’s misery. And they are fuelling misery with their drugs. That only leads to more bad crime.’ In Willesden Green, to the east of the borough, criminality has spilled into everyday life. Young mother Sophia Govani told how just days earlier her supermarket shopping had been stolen from outside her front door.
‘While I was feeding my toddler, my grocery shop arrived and I asked a delivery guy to leave it outside,’ she revealed.
‘Just look at the amount of rubbish everywhere,’ continued Angela. ‘People just throw stuff on the floor here’
Last week, The Mail on Sunday pounded the filthy pavements to try to understand what has gone so horribly wrong
‘Within seconds, £85 worth of shopping was stolen. It was so upsetting as it contained my child’s food items.’ Another local resident said his family puppy – a Yorkshire Terrier – had been stolen from inside his front door last week. ‘She is chipped and I’ve reported it,’ he said, teary-eyed. ‘But we are devastated.’
Thankfully for the people of Brent, the Met Police are attempting to crack down. Last month, a police operation in Harlesden saw the force deliberately ramming scooter riders off their vehicles – known as a ‘tactical contact’ – in a bid to stop petty crime such as phone snatching. Fourteen mopeds and three vehicles were seized during the one-day operation.
‘We understand Londoners’ concerns about how e-bikes and e-scooters are being used to
commit offences, such as phone theft, burglary and other anti-social behaviour,’ explained Superintendent Luke Baldock.
‘That is why the Met is continuing to ramp up action and increase the roll-out of specialised operations across our neighbourhoods to tackle this type of crime.’
For the borough of Brent, however, crime is just one symptom of a systematic problem encompassing everything from mass immigration to high deprivation and widespread unemployment.
Until Brent Council is able to address these underlying issues, police enforcement is like putting a bucket under a waterfall.
Additional reporting by Daniel Hammond