The Recorder found drugs wraps, used condoms and a knife on an estate where residents claim the authorities have “given up” trying to police drug dealers and sex workers.
One furious mother showed our reporter doorbell camera footage of her nine-year-old son leaving home and encountering a prostitute and her client having sex in the stairwell.
Another witnessed a prostitute giving oral sex in broad daylight, in full view of playing children.
One disabled resident, who challenged a gang inside his building, reportedly had a gun pulled on him.
The Metropolitan Police Service confirmed reports of a firearm incident, but said officers could not substantiate it.
Ten homeowners and tenants on the Townley Court estate, just off Romford Road, near Maryland station, asked the Recorder to anonymise them, fearing reprisals.
“We’re under siege,” said one. “It’s like a horror show.”
“It’s so dangerous around here,” a neighbour added. “At night, I’m scared coming home. As soon as it gets dark, I’m panicking.”
“Frightened”
Residents said their once peaceful estate had become a lawless mecca for drug addicts, who smoke crack, inject heroin, sell sex and rob people with impunity.
One elderly resident said he had been mugged twice.
“Police never turned up,” he said of the latest attack. “They said they didn’t have enough vehicles. It’s the same story every time.”
He said one of the gang even smirked at him, boasting: “You can’t do nothing.”
“I’m frightened sometimes to even look outside, in case they see me,” said one mother.
“They’re very hostile. They don’t care. They do it out in the open because they know nothing’s going to happen.
“If you call the police, they turn up hours later or just send them on their way. They just come back ten, 15 minutes later.
"Sometimes police drive right past people openly doing drugs and do nothing.”
Some residents said they’d given up calling police.
'Lawless'
“The police talk to us like we’re a crowd of idiots,” said one man. “They have a script and they just stick to it.”
“It’s as if the police and the council are scared of them,” a woman added. “It’s like things have got out of control and they can’t get it back now, so they’ve just given up.
“I’ve seen a woman pull down her knickers and go to the toilet in the middle of the road. A council worker was there. I said, ‘Look!’ but he just said, ‘there’s nothing I can do’.”
Addicts and prostitutes have reportedly obtained keys usually used by firefighters, enabling them to enter residents’ blocks to use drugs, have sex, vomit and defecate.
People are terrified to even set foot outside their front doors.
Locals say the estate has become so lawless that sex workers sometimes walk around naked.
“I said to one of the prostitutes, ‘why are you wasting your life on these steps?’” one man recounted. “She said, ‘the guy beats me up’. I said to her, ‘you’re going to die’.
“I feel sorry for them. They are humans like us. But we are not disturbing other people’s lives. We don’t need this happening right in front of our doors.”
“Relentless”
Drug users hold noisy gatherings in residents' doorways and gardens “every single night”.
“We had a fight here the other night,” said one man. “They were shouting, ‘Give me the knife! Give me the knife!’”
Sometimes sex workers rob their customers, residents said, leading to shouting and screaming.
“It’s just relentless,” said a school worker, who has lived on the estate for more than 20 years.
“Sometimes I’m going to work on two, three hours’ sleep. Some of the kids from around here are at my school and they’re not sleeping either.”
Residents have become used to finding addicts passed out in the street.
The London Ambulance Service were last called out on May 15, to an “unresponsive” woman.
“I went to work and came back at the end of the day and the woman was still there in the same position,” said the resident who rang them.
“I thought she was dead.”
“Demon Gang”
One man told the Recorder he had been threatened with a machete.
“A guy put a camera in my face and tried to punch me in the face,” he said. “As soon as I took his camera away, he pulled a knife the size of my forearm.”
Another time, the gang stole his children’s trainers.
“Every night I have a phone call from my Mrs saying, ‘They’re here, they’re fighting, they’re p***ing, they’re s****ing,” he said.
“We find needles, condoms. Every morning I have to clean it (the stairwell) before I take my kids to school.”
In his stairwell, we found urine and suspected drugs wraps.
In the gardens, we found faeces, condoms, discarded underwear and a knife. We reported the knife to police, but it was gone by the time they attended.
Anybody who confronts the gang is threatened, the man said.
Abusive messages were scrawled on his building after his wife simply asked them to move so she could enter her home.
Those messages have washed away now, but a graffiti tag – “Demon Gang” – has been daubed on the doorway.
The Met claimed not to know of any named gang linked to the estate.
“Pointless”
Residents said they had risked gathering evidence, only to be ignored.
When addicts realised locals had started filming them, some started taking their drugs behind umbrellas.
Locals said they spent months collecting photos and videos of a drug-dealer’s car.
“People sleep in there, have sex in there, take drugs in there,” one resident said – but no action seemed to have been taken.
The Met said it was “aware of a potentially suspicious vehicle” and was “investigating”.
“Someone is going to get killed,” one man said. “We’re all suffering.”
Residents said the authorities carried out “pointless” daylight patrols, despite the problems overwhelmingly occurring overnight.
“We have carried out numerous tasking patrols but unfortunately all the issues raised happen outside of operational hours,” Newham Council admitted.
However, following our enquiry, it added: “We will now ensure overtime patrols are in place to support residents.”
The Met said it too was now “reviewing shift patterns for local officers to ensure they are in the area at the right times”.
“Embarrassing”
It wasn’t always like this, said a young woman whose parents bought their house in the 1990s.
“I just don’t understand it,” she said. “Stratford is a prime location. How can they let things get this bad? It’s like they just don’t give a damn.”
She now lives in fear of being attacked.
“Every time I come back from the gym, I’m like, ‘please, God, I hope they don’t do anything to me. It’s just so scary.”
Recently, her car was broken into. She started parking a bit further away, but said she got fined.
“So they don’t mind coming around here to give out parking tickets,” she fumed.
“It’s embarrassing, as well as being unsafe. You don’t want to invite people to your house.
“The police are doing absolutely nothing. Maybe, one of these days, if somebody gets hurt, then they will come.”
“It’s like they are waiting for someone to actually get stabbed,” one pensioner sighed. “I just don’t know how it’s going to end.”
He feared the community would eventually take the law into their own hands.
“It’s got to be stopped, one way or another,” he said. “It’s going to get deadly otherwise.”
One frustrated resident added: “If the police and the council did their jobs, we wouldn’t have to put up with all this.”
The authorities
Newham Council said it would secure blocks of flats with new locks, preventing intruders from entering with fire keys.
It said all five blocks in Townley Court, Dyson Road and Faraday Road would be secured by June 14.
“We have been working together with the police to deter the antisocial behaviour issues through joint operations, which has resulted in arrests and community protection orders issued in March 2024,” it said.
The Met said it was “working hard to tackle the issue in order to make residents feel safer".
"We have listened to concerns and are actively working with partners to reduce problems in the area," a spokesperson said.
“As part of this work, we have a Design Out Crime officer visiting the area. They will make recommendations on what needs to change.”
Until then, it urged residents to report all offences by dialling 101, or 999 in an emergency.
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