• This is the first time I heard of this. I live on the Lockner estate, between De Beauvoir square and Kingsland Road and i get involved with the estate's tenants & residents association a lot. We have PCSOs asking us what they should be doing and sometimes bits of money to spend on things in the immediate area. Let me know if you have suggestions for what we could/should be doing...

    Oliver Schick should be able to help, or at least point you in the right direction, hodger.

    hodger, I have no idea what the Safer Neighbourhood Team's priorities should be in your area, but if there is a feeling that this is a priority, you could obviously put that forward.

    I don't think anyone knows where the people, if indeed they are the same people every time, who perpetrate these attacks come from, but the SNT could obviously tackle it best if they actually lived in De Beauvoir ward. If not, they'd have to collaborate with other police and the detective work would probably be more difficult. I'd say just finding out whether it's locals or someone else would be the first thing to do.

    At the moment, it's very unlikely that any mugging activity will be going on and I personally expect it to have disappeared by the time it gets warmer again, but just in case it doesn't:

    The muggers there rely on a constant stream of cyclists to pass so that they can pick a victim who they think won't be able to defend themselves that well, and indeed one who isn't followed immediately by another cyclist, or at least that's what I've heard from a couple of people who have reported such attacks.

    A police sting would probably work well but is difficult to set up in this area. The attacks also occur too sporadically to be able to anticipate them well. Some patrols outside of normal working hours, during the hours of the evening when the attacks tend to occur, would also be good. But, as I say, I doubt that anything much will happen during the Big Freeze and the police will be better off tackling cannibalism in Stoke Newington.

    Anyway, it's very useful for police to hear from people with local knowledge and work together with them.

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