Following the discovery of a body at the edge of the old cricket pitch in Finsbury Park, the Metropolitan Police have concluded that a person died in suspicious circumstances and have launched a murder inquiry.
The police believe that the young woman who was found died on Christmas Eve. The body was relatively well hidden by the old equipment hut so it remained hidden until today.
While the surrounding 'scene' is searched for any possible evidence, the whole American Gardens section of the park is closed including the Endymion Road entrance along with the one next to the old cricket pitch on Green Lanes.
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I don't think any measures can protect any of us from a murder, which is such an extreme and atypically violent crime. The Make Finsbury Park Safer plea seems pretty much a knee jerk response, in the light of any lack of statistical evidence of real violence or that it is in any way unsafe. What makes Finsbury Park safer is the police being able to promptly catch and prosecute people who would make it unsafe.
What Graham said.
It's safer than Green Lanes if you're worried about "deaths". The horror of a murder as opposed to a person being mown down by a vehicle is driving the knee-jerk reaction.
Everytime something like this happens around here the local geography gets the blame and someone tries to put up gates etc. I'm just mindful that if they'd been successful before there would be no more going through the passage at night for us all. For instance.
You’re right that it certainly isn’t about either/or and that there should be a review of how to make the park a safer place.
I’m not convinced that locking it is the way to do this though. If you think about the places you feel safe walking after dark they tend to be busy, peopled and lit. A locked park turns it into a no go area where only those who can vault the fence can get in (and they will) and it could easily turn into a place where crime happens simply because it’s not seen. I’m worried that it will actually make matters worse rather than better by turning the park into a place to be feared rather than enjoyed.
But why only the park? Whether it’s the park itself or the area around it (Harringay, Manor House, Stroud Green, etc.), our part of North London seems less safe these days. I would hazard a guess that the surrounding streets have far more incidents of crime than the park, just by virtue of how much more human activity they host. There’s no point in feeling safe in the park if you then getting mugged on Seven Sisters Road on your way home.
I don’t imagine there’s much that can be done practically if there’s a general rise in criminality in our society, but surely its effects can be reduced? But rather, over many years we’ve had “care” in the community, reductions in prison sentencing (both reductions in actual imprisonments and reductions in the lengths of prison terms)—whereby those who are a danger to the public, whether it be because of a criminal disposition or a mental health condition, roam freely—the decline in beat policing by uniformed officers, and closures of police stations: It all seems to point back to reducing public spending by cutting public services. (So much for living in the “first world”!)
Yes we need to lock up all the mentals like the good old days.
Just going to leave this here....https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/media-centre/responsible-reportin...
Indeed, Sarah, I think there's a lot to be said for locking 'em all up: old-time "mentals", Seventh Day Adventists, members of cooperative societies, borough councillors, astrologers—the list (well my list) is endless.
But seriously, that article you linked is irrelevant to my point: I'm not making any claims about the proportion of crime that is attributable to severe mental health conditions—99.999% of violent crime might be caused by perfectly nice sociopaths. So what? But yes, protect the rest of the public from people who are likely be dangerous, whether they have violent tendencies due to mental illness, or they're just perfectly sane murderers; regardless of what the ratio is between them.
I think the important point is the feeling of safety.
Violent crime has fallen mostly year year on year in London, with the odd blip. The past was a much more violent place.
When we first moved here in ‘84 crime felt a daily thing. There was one break in and 3 attempted break in to our house in the first year and similar things were happening to our neighbours. You didn’t walk down The Passage even in daylight. Green Lanes after dark was empty of people apart from those who frequented the so called sports clubs that were everywhere (I.e. gambling dens). You only went to the Salisbury to score or offload stolen goods. My next door neighbour was murdered in his flat and we even had a drive by shooting on our street. It really was bloody awful but it was a cheap place to get somewhere to live.
One thing that has happened though is that it is far easier to share experiences of crime and feelings of not being safe on social media (here for example)
Gosh that's a particularly prurient piece of journalism! I'm struggling to see why either his bisexuality or HIV status are relevant here.
It is this kind of language that further stigmatises all the peaceful, law-abiding bisexual and HIV+ people in a day and age where it shouldn't be an issue at all. The inference here is clearly (at least to me) something along the lines of "ooh, he's bound to be a wrong'un if he's bisexual", which is absolutely not the case. There are sadistic and violent straight, HIV- people too.
Thanks for raising, Betty - I was thinking the same thing, but you beat me to it.
"The details of what HE did to HIS victim are horrific. How do we make the park a safer place?"
Do you not see the answer there? The park is an entirely innocent victim itself in this. We need to lock up all men. This is seen as slightly draconian (although I bet it wouldn't be if women were the problem) so we just lock them up once they show themselves to be dangerous. Sadly this seems to have not been done here for some reason and that is the problem, not the park.
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