Muggings by men on scooters in SW18, SW11 and SW12 Post Reply

[LP73]

I am concerned by the number of recent mugging by scooters and bikes in the area and wondered if anyone knew what the police were doing to try and catch these criminals?
It is my understand that in the past three weeks there have been over ten muggings, they tend to happen during the day or early evening on main roads, side roads and car parks. Ladies alone or with pushchairs have been the main targets.
Quite a few of these incidents have been posted on Facebook with one lady being dragged from the pavement onto the main road which was Magdalen Road. The lady landed on the exhaust pipe of the bike and had first degree burns.

The muggings happen with two men on one scooter or small bike most of the time. The men appear to have cockney accents and be in their late 20's/early 30's with one actually saying 'sorry love' before taking a bag.
I am very surprised that the local police have not made the community aware of this. Yes, there are an increase of things happening at this time of the year but this is more than a few times of the same incident.
Please, please, be very aware when our and about. Keep your phone in your pocket and not in your handbag so that at least you have a way to call 999 if this happens.
Stay safe everyone.

[Happymama]

Sadly the community officers and policemen are to busy trying catch the real criminals in this world.... Mums and dads dropping children off to school!!! There has been a police van between Parkgate, Eaton House and Belleville meteor every single day for the last 3 weeks trying to catch parents who park in the red boxes. Am not saying that it's right to park in a red box ... But really???!! Now policemen are doing this? They are apparently employed by TFL with the specific purpose of going around schools at busy pick ups and drop off times.

Surely policemen / community officers should be doing something a little more useful?

[davethomas99999]

There are a direct result of our open boards!

[LP73]

I am sure TFL have a budget for that and as we all know community police have zero powers anyway.
Parking in red boxes is really bad, they are there for a reason and we all know that it should be done.

I think there is a policeman on here that may be able to give some feedback on both but I raised this to let everyone about the muggings rather than have a go at what else the police are doing that people don't like.

[LP73]

Dave I don't understand your comment??

[papinian]

I am very surprised that the local police have not made the community aware of this.

I am not surprised. The Met is institutionally corrupt and useless. I have posted this before on this site, but, unfortunately, there are a lot of people whose minds are too closed to look at the evidence rationally.

Remember, over 50% of members of the Met do not even live in Greater London - they travel in from places in Surrey, Kent, Essex, etc. using their free travel. I'm not criticising them - it's a perfectly rational thing to do. However, it does raise serious questions at to their attitudes towards people who live in areas like ours, particularly given that the Met is still horribly white and English and un-Metropolitan.

A large amount of Wandsworth Met resource is diverted to policing in central London, policing football matches, etc. I would like to see the bloated and foreign-owned London football clubs pay the costs of policing their matches and the hooligan element among their supporters rather than it being paid for by everyone.

[LP73]

Again this is to raise awareness as to what is happening in the area and not a having a go post!!

The police are under resourced and under paid and the poor men and ladies cannot afford to live in London, especially with families. I am sure most would gladly have a 20 minute commute rather than an hour or more. I also think many do their job as well as they can so that's not fair generalising and saying that just because they don't live in the area they are not good at their jobs!!

There are also many different cultures in the MET especially in the Wandsworth borough.

Finally, papinon fotball clubs pay vast sums to use the police resources which is common knowledge. You just need to email CFC and they are happy to provide eveidence as to how much they pay the MET for the service. I have no idea why you're such a negative man all of the time and before you come back with more (generally aburisve messages) I won't be responding to anything else from yourself.

[papinian]

I have no idea why you're such a negative man all of the time and before you come back with more (generally aburisve messages) I won't be responding to anything else from yourself.

LP73: This comment from you is the only abusive thing that anyone has posted on this thread.

On numerous threads when anyone says anything critical you get irate and complain that they are being negative. I don't think this is sensible for a local forum. People are always going to have criticism and valid criticism is the only way that anything gets improved

I made two perfectly sensible, factually-based and valid points regarding policing. Happymama made a different but also valid point. For some reason you have a problem with them, but I am not sure why.

Here is the Evening Standard story about how London football clubs do not pay for the policing resource that has to be deployed to deal with football matches in the capital: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/l ... 20567.html Given what we now know about Chelsea Football Club and cover up of child abuse I will not be getting my information from them thank you very much.

Here is the Guardian story about the concerns that the Deputy Mayor for policing has about the majority of members of the Met living outside of London: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ide-london

If you want police to be able to deal with muggings then they need to have the resource to do so. As regards what you wanted this thread to be about, if you didn't want it to be about the police then you shouldn't have mentioned them. Don't complain at happymama and myself for responding.

[IndyB]

LP73, thank you very much for your post. I did not know the extent of this issue (the muggings), and appreciate you using the forum to raise awareness in hopes that we can all stay safe.

Thank you.

[papinian]

If anybody is interested in knowing how these scumbags get away with mugging people, rather than just uttering platitudes, then see this article from July:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -them.html

After one of these scumbags died while being chased by police in 2014

police are now too fearful to give pursuit of anyone on a moped — and criminals know this only too well. A senior police source has confirmed this to the Mail, even though police are reluctant to comment officially. Victims have also provided anecdotal evidence of being told by officers that 'health and safety fears' mean they are not allowed to follow muggers.

But the stance has become even more entrenched since it was announced last month that the four officers involved will face gross misconduct hearings. As one police officer explains: 'Those who chased Henry Hicks are facing disciplinary action and dismissal. No one wants to risk this happening to them so we are no longer following people fleeing on mopeds or motorbikes.'

Last year, police were told not chase if a rider wasn't wearing a helmet. They were asked to weigh up the seriousness of the crime or decide if there was a threat to life.

I support ordinary policemen and don't believe that they should be facing disciplinary proceedings for doing their job. If you agree, and don't want to people be able to carry out muggings with impunity, then the best course of action is to make your views known to your local councillors and MP.

[Motherslittlehelper]

Great awareness post, thanks

(Without going too far off topic, I agree with the postings and also feel that Wandsworth police useless. When we had items stolen from our house they could not have been more disinterested.When you ask them to stop the numerous mobile phone users whilst driving (along Trinty road, Bellevue road and bollingbrook in rush hours especially) they say they have no resource. What is the point of paying all this money for the police here ?)

[Denwand]

These muggings illustrate how it is vital we all become more aware of our surroundings whilst out and about.

Having said that I understand the victims will be taken completely by surprise as they are mugged from behind but we all could help by noticing certain signs that these louts are operating around us.

Two young men on a moped/scooter is a rather unusual occurrence - if you notice most of these vehicles are ridden solo or (rarely) with a child or a female pillion. Those that are ridden with two young males make up (I would estimate) much less than 1% of the moped/scooter riders....Of course it could be innocent but it is worth noticing those that are and making a mental note.

Another warning sign is two moped/scooters, one ridden solo and one with a pillion passenger - this is the classic modus operandi of the motorcycle thieves - two moped riders stand guard whilst the pillion uses a portable angle grinder to cut chains etc...If they are approached they issue threats or use the waiting scooters for a quick getaway.

Thirdly - two young men on two moped/scooters in convoy who take a bit too much interest in something and continue to circle until they find the opportunity to strike.

This last scenario happened to a friend who had his laptop bag snatched whilst having a coffee at an outside table....he had noticed the two scooters "cruising" past and then returning but he thought nothing of it. I recommend that we all become away of these "danger signals" and thwart the theft before it happens.

[Happymama]

LP73 I didn't mean to take away the importance of your post and I am grateful for you for flagging it.

I don't own a car and I don't drive - so the red boxes don't bother me ! I am just surprised that with things like these going on, the Met police can afford to have a van with 3 (!!) policemen and one community officer every single morning to try and catch parents. Surely these policemen didn't sign up to the force to work for TFL and give parking fines ? I am just surprised that's all! And I do wish their time was invested in trying to catch real criminals. Don't we have enough parking wardens in the borough to deal with illegal red boxes parking?

But thank you and Denwand for the post and the tips !

[LP73]

Thanks for your post Denwood - making more people aware is vital and you are correct the muggings that I am aware of have happened from behind.
The one during the day in Aldi or Lidl car park was brutal - two small bikes surrounding the car and taking what the lady had as she packed her car. They even took her earrings out of her ears. Brutal and everyone needs to be aware.

[Denwand]

Latest from the BBC here;

"Internal Scotland Yard statistics show there have been 7,668 crimes involving mopeds to date in 2016 - up from 1,053 in the whole of 2014 and 4,647 in the whole of 2015."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38294358