Strontium69
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Well, sadly depends what you mean by 'experience' in crime.
Humberside Police's motto used to be Help - Protect - Reassure, they had to abandon that when the population constantly berated them for failing on all three.
Again, not wanting to derail the thread! Sorry it's a long one!
tldr; an overview of the area of Hull between Welly and Haworth in the Beverley Road area over the last 2 years and the sudden spike in crime:
This video was shot a few months ago about a quarter of a mile from the Welly Club.
At the very start of the video, the camera is pointing north West - about 50 yards along the road off to the right of the screen is a Police station. That was put there for the Park, which is also about 50 yards off to the right, about 15 years ago? But at the start of 2018 it was demanned and moved to a station about 3 miles away.
Literally the day after the Police moved out, it was like precinct 13. We felt this part of the city take a turn off a steep cliff, we FELT the crime rise steeply. People around here talk about the area getting noticeably worse by the week and by the DAY! There are coppers around here constantly responding to incidents and violence.
The house on the end of the right of the terrace where it's being filmed is a social housing hostel, and is ALWAYS full of drug dealers. Generally the windows get put through once a month, and the Police are at this crossroads at least weekly, and once or twice a week along this short street.
According to the Police there are 'bad people' who come from Manchester to tax the dealers in this street.
The guy in red is drunk and is trying to score some spice and is not happy. He's already been up and down yelling at people, it's close to school home time. At 1:10 he can be seen 'talking' to a guy with a dog. The guy with the dog is the local heroin/spice/crack dealer and that's his house he's outside. He's lived here for years, so I know him to say 'hello' to, and apart from trying to sell me a bike every now and then, he doesn't bring any trouble, funnily enough, to my door, unlike the dealers at the other end.
Just after the filming stopped the dealer with the dog saw the guy in red off and was shouting at him.
With absolutely ZERO exaggeration, this heroin/spice dealer was complaining that the area was getting worse, I kid you not. Our local heroin dealer is complaining about the downturn in the neighbourhood.
Last year about halfway between here and Welly a man was stabbed to death over a drugs argument. Around the time the video was taken a new dealer moved in and within a week was lying on that cycle path you can see crossing the street to the far left, having been stabbed by guys who had come to tax him.
Just before Christmas I 'found' a semi-conscious 15 year old girl lying along that cycle path about 1am after a saturday night crying that she'd been spiked. I got her home safely.
You can walk along this street at 3.30 in the afternoon and you can watch blokes sat on the pavement openly dividing their score up on pieces of paper, mothers and children walking by.
I have started to slowly try to document the goings on here, but I have to be careful and subtle. People think I exaggerate. You can plainly hear their orders too, they shout it 100 yards down the street, "2 brown and 3 white", this crossroads is s hotspot for people just hanging around and cars parked across it, all hours of the night, dealing obviously.
I was beaten up by a gang of kids on this street about 9 months ago that left me on crutches for 2 weeks. So picture this, I'm lying on the street, in the middle of this junction, getting the life kicked, stamped and beaten out of me by 2 kids raining down on me. In this hails of fists and feet I manage to have the presence to get my phone out and dial 999, only to receive "You are on hold for the emergency services".
A neighbour was watching the entire assault unfold from her bedroom window; she too received "You are on hold for the emergency services". After I had ran for my life on a busted knee, I eventually got through, but because I had given them the slip by now and they were not in sight, I was told it was not an emergency.
All this may not be directly related, but since the City of Culture (2017) concentrated on the City Centre, we have all seen a MASSIVE drop in ALL areas outside the centre. Serious social commentators are calling this place the English Detroit and they're watching it happen live, and we are living it.
The Police are in general retreat, they are losing control. Hull has always had problems and bad areas, but all this is new and is less than 2 years old.
This is my local shop, on Beverley Road about 1/4 mile from the Welly.
It's along time since we've heard of buses refusing to go on estates! (2-3 miles from the main area in question and certainly NOT a student area, but indicative of the current trend downwards across the city.)
People are talking in terms of a sudden lurch to the bad old days of the 80s with large no go areas and entire run down streets and buses afraid to travel into certain areas.
There are potholes everywhere, there is more rubbish and fly tipping, and rats are out of control.
Newland Avenue:
Newland Avenue is the heart of student land, and also the heart of this local community. Students and old skool families live cheek by cheek in this area of Hull, a pretty unique blend, giving Newland Avenue a unique character, and safe day and night for decades. That has changed in less than 2 years. People are staying away from Newland Avenue during the day because of crime, muggings, street beggars, street drunks, spice addicts and random violence. At night the addition of more bars and later licenses is alienating residents and creating a Mini-Magaluf from 1am till 3am.
In very short time it has seen a real spike in crime.
The Piper Club is the other main student dive in this area, on Newland Avenue, not far from the end of Raglan Street. It's much more of a meat factory than Welly, they do things like Hawaiian night in November when people go in swimwear.
There is a lot of foot traffic along this small street (the one in the video); people pass both ways to and from Piper and Welly. We watch lasses walking into that park all alone all hours of the night.
Welly Club is right in the centre of this expanding 'ghetto' area.
Newland Avenue is beginning to suffer. The 'badness' is creeping up the streets on the East side of Newland Avenue, from Beverley Road.
The other side of Cottingham Road, north along Beverley Road, now to become Beverley High Road, around where Libby lived, around Beresford Avenue and Haworth are still largely untroubled by this spreading 'ghettoisation'. You are not 100% SAFE anywhere in this City, but you travel from 2nd world Russian/Brazilian style street safety where Welly is, to quite an affluent 1st world area once you get to the Haworth part of Beverley Road. Literally, a mile along Beverley Road is a world away!
A lot of this is subjective perception and anecdotal, but it is shared by a lot of people. Humberside Police are under a LOT of scrutiny at the moment. I think because of the upsetting nature, and out of respect for Libby and her family, there's been no real public criticism yet. But people are already afraid and angry BEFORE this Libby case by what they see as the crumbling of the very infrastructure around them and being left to deal with it alone. Me and my neighbours have joined together to share a CCTV DVR box across our two houses. We are at the moment gathering wood to put up more gates round the back and put extra height on our fences.
People here genuinely don't care whether Libby was from Hull, whether she liked Hull or took it to heart or not. There is genuine shock and concern, not just for Libby, but for everyone who lives here because we fundamental believe the Police cannot protect us.
Wednesdays at Welly is under 18s night. A lot of us know lots of people who go to Welly, I have friends who have teenage kids who go to Welly. Real old style communities may be a thing of the past, but everyone is worried about the future of this locale and the city and everyone is feeling it.
tldr: Hull has had this kind of thing coming for a couple of years...
