“There are parents who think next time we come to their door, it will be to tell them their child is dead.”
I’m told this by PC Zoe Ticehurst and her colleague, Det Con Faisal El Issaoui.
They are showing me around the neighbourhoods of Lambeth and Southwark in south London, where some children are highly vulnerable to the gangs who operate there.
El Issaoui explained: “It’s very hard for a lot of young people who are brought up on these estates. That’s the only thing they can see.
“Unfortunately, when you get to a certain age, there’s a choice that has to be made.”
The officers, who serve on the Metropolitan Police’s proactive offender targeting and management team, said summer, when schools are closed and the long, warmer days bring children on to the streets, was a prime recruiting time for gangs.
El Issaoui said gang members easily spotted more vulnerable children, who were often from more deprived backgrounds or excluded from school.
“They might get offered money in exchange for holding on to something, or to carry something from one place to another, as a means of sort of making some quick money. That’s how it starts.”
Ticehurst added: “They come home with new stuff and the parents haven’t given them money, or they go missing for days. And unfortunately they’re caught up in stuff they shouldn’t be.
“I’ve been to young people’s houses and the parents were so afraid, because they’re going into that last year of school and they believe they’ve got to make a choice: Go into the gang, or they don’t.”
