Those of us trapped in Mayor Sadiq Khan’s low traffic neighbourhood scheme are now obedient, resigned. We expect a car journey of under a mile to take 40 minutes. We don’t hope for anything more. On Sunday, around five o’clock, my son and I stuck fast in Dalston Lane, but as we settled down to wait in a mist of carbon monoxide, there was a commotion up ahead. Down the wrong side of the road, horn blaring, lights flashing, came a Mercedes G-wagon, matt black with that handy snorkel up the side, the favourite ride of north London’s gangsters. It was interesting how calm everyone was about it, how unsurprised. A souped-up tank of a car coming at us head-on, and no one shouted or beeped. Each car in the queue ahead pulled seamlessly to one side, like the teeth in a well-functioning zipper. They don’t shift like this for ambulances or police cars any more.
We all know who drives the G-wagons. There are two rival drug gangs in north London, the Tottenham Turks, aka the Tottenham Boys, and their rivals, the Hackney Turks, aka the Bombacilars. In May last year, the Tottenham Boys attempted a hit on the Bombers and a nine-year-old girl was caught in the crossfire, shot in the head as she ate ice cream just a short walk from my house. And the Tottenham Boys got away with it. Only the getaway driver, a non-Turkish stooge called Javon Riley, was ever arrested, found guilty this summer of grievous bodily harm and three counts of attempted murder. The Sun newspaper did a big feature on the gangs: ‘Inside the Turkish drug lords’ medieval London turf war, with shootouts and soundproof torture cells, leaving cops terrified.’ When Riley was asked by the police to provide the names of gang members, and of the hitman whose bullet hit that nine-year-old, he refused. He feared for his family. The Turks are too ruthless and too effective.
The G-wagon blared past, faded away, and we law-abiding cars crawled our way to Kingsland Road, where we were careful not to speed up. If, in the euphoria of a clear-road moment, you drive just 4mph over the 20mph limit, you’ve had it. That’s a £100 penalty charge notice and three points on your licence. Then there are fines for pausing in the wrong place, for turning into one of the increasing number of restricted zones, for doing a U-turn. There are cameras every-where; the eyes of the state in the sky. Not for the Turks though. They do as they please. As I drove, I imagined all the PCNs piling up on the marbled hall of some gated mansion in the Edmonton area, all the court summons swept up, thrown away. It’s not two-tier justice or two-tier policing, it’s gaslighting.
Just to enrage myself, I like to play a sort of police Pelmanism, where you pair a nasty crime that’s gone entirely uninvestigated with another minor infraction that’s been diligently, exhaustively policed. The speeding, opioid-dealing of the Turks vs minor parking misdemeanours; the virtual violence of ‘hateful’ tweets vs the real violence on real streets. Lucy Connolly, Allison Pearson, Graham Linehan: police diligence knows no limits when there’s absolutely no threat to anyone.
My favourite recent Twitter case revolves around a journalist, Greg Hadfield, who last year tried to warn the Labour party that one of their own ex-MPs was posting pictures of penises on his X account. Hadfield tweeted a screenshot of one of the tweets with a comment suggesting that the Labour party should have a word. As a result, Hadfield was charged himself, for passing the picture on. His crime was to ‘send by a public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message or matter’, and he has just found out that he’s lost his appeal to have the case dropped and must go to trial. The CPS made a ‘not unreasonable’ decision to prosecute, said senior district judge Paul Goldspring.
There are cameras everywhere; the eyes of the state in the sky. Not for the gangs though
Not unreasonable! All Greg did, as far as I know, was try to prevent indecency and obscenity. I’d pair his crime in my mind with all the offensive, indecent, obscene and menacing matters that I see as I pass police-free Finsbury Park station on an average evening – for instance, on Friday, a group of young men that looked like proper trouble: black clothes, black masks, circling like jackals. The Nextdoor app confirmed it: ‘If you have teenage children around Finsbury Park station, please tell them to be vigilant as there are around 30 youths masked up, robbing and violently attacking local kids.’
‘Hope the police are aware,’ read one comment. ‘They are about as useful as a chocolate teapot,’ read the next. ‘Why not report someone’s hurt feelings and they’ll soon show up?’
Round the corner, the usual mental case was standing and shouting with his trousers down, groin at eye level for a nine-year-old in a car. Violent attacks on passing children and public nudity – that’s menacing and indecent, Judge Goldspring. If the police just walked up and down past Finsbury Park tube all day, they’d be earning their keep.
I try to shield my son from the absence of policing. I want him to believe that there’s a robust and vigilant army of bobbies between him and criminal chaos. ‘Just youngsters having fun!’ I say to him blithely as I lock the car doors in the Finsbury underpass. ‘They wear masks because they’re paranoid about germs… and that man? Well, darling, some people do just forget to put their trousers on.’
On the main street that runs perpendicular to mine, there’s been a spate of burglaries, a youngish man smashing in through basement windows. We know it’s the same man every time because there’s footage of him in action on the Ring doorbell cameras. One neighbour offered the video to the police, but was told they couldn’t use it, that actual footage of the crime being committed wasn’t good enough evidence. See? Gaslighting.
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