Diary of despair

JILL Cockrill couldn't have asked for a better welcome when she moved into her new home in Scarborough Terrace four months ago.

She had been renting a house a few doors away, but this it was the first time she had bought her own place. Her new neighbors were quick to make her feel at home.

"You don't expect your neighbours to come around and bring you flowers," she said. "It really made me feel welcome. I was moving my furniture by hand, and people were offering to help. It was lovely."

Four months on, her delight in her new home is turning sour. This has nothing to do with her neighbours - they still get on well. It has nothing to do with the location - Scarborough Terrace is convenient for the city centre, Jill says.

What has worn her down is the constant petty crime and vandalism.

Since she moved, her car has been vandalised five times. And last week alone, as her diary reveals, she had to endure:

Her Sky TV cable being vandalised

Her flowerbed being trampled

Her car being damaged by a yob and, in a separate incident later in the week, being urinated on in the middle of the night.

Jill's diary reveals a strong community of good neighbours, where people are always willing to lend a hand. But it also uncovers a community made apathetic by crime and with little confidence in the police.

Phyllis McEwan, of the Clifton Residents' Association, admits that, while progress has been made in the area, the kind of petty crime and vandalism Jill has been subjected to is not unusual. There are more serious problems too, she says - such as the dealers who sometimes openly sell drugs on the street, a "fact of life" in the Clifton area.

It is the constant petty crime that has got Jill down, however. Drunken rowdiness on Friday and Saturday nights and acts of mindless vandalism are so routine that she and other residents often don't bother reporting them to the police.

There is a convenience store in Burton Stone Lane that Jill avoids because of the gangs of kids who hang around asking shoppers to buy cigarettes or alcohol for them.

But what particularly upset her last week, she said, was the trampling of her flowers. It made her realise someone had been in her back yard. "The fact that someone has been there, possibly trying to look into your window... it all breeds fear," she said.

Now Jill, 24, a financial analyst with St James Hospital in Leeds, who came to York as a student, is thinking of moving.

"I don't want to move because I like the area and I like the neighbours," she said. "But I live on my own and it has got to the stage I don't like going out at night."

Most of the recent problems she puts down to bored kids. She hopes things may get better now the school holidays are over. But she sees the plan to build a new Arc Light centre in Shipton Street as the final straw. However well-intentioned the work the charity does, many of the Arc Light residents are struggling with drug addictions, she claimed. "I don't want to come across drug addicts when I'm walking home at night."

Sgt Richard Crinnion of York police said comparatively little crime had been reported in the Shipton Street area in the past few weeks. But he accepted many residents shared Jill's feeling it often wasn't worth reporting minor crime, because they felt the police would do little about it.

That wasn't so, he insisted. Police might not act immediately, or visit the home of everyone who reported a crime, but the information supplied would help them to build up a picture of crime patterns and crime levels - and could be the vital piece of information police needed to tackle a drug-dealer or other criminal.

It was vital residents kept reporting crimes to police, so that officers knew where to target their resources, he said. "If we don't know what's going on, we cannot do anything about it."

To report a crime, call York police on 0845 6060247.

:: Jill's diary

Sunday

Turn on TV, can't seem to get a picture, flick channels, no, nothing. No wonder, Skybox is no longer in unit where it should be, it's moved right against the wall. Take a look outside. Great! Someone's pulled out the cabling from the wall. Take a look up and down the street, it's not just me, most other houses have had the same done. Mindless.....so mindless. Ring Sky, will cost £200 for new box, can't afford it, will have to do without TV for a while. Can't even watch terrestrial as aerial cable was slashed some months ago.

Monday

Bank Holiday...woo hoo! Arrive back from Manchester in the afternoon after a great family meal. Everything seems OK... hang on a minute, what's all that mess in the yard? Fantastic. Someone's been over the back wall and has trampled on my flowerbed. Not my plants! I'm not the most green-fingered of people but they were looking really healthy for a change.

Check outhouses, nothing missing... phew!

Tuesday

Day off work. Carpets are being fitted. Carpet fitters will only come if they can park their truck. Hmmm.... slight problem, after 7.30 in the morning there's no parking spaces available as hospital staff come and park here. Get up early to try and scope a place, no luck. Ah ha... neighbour is parked next to me. Manage to secure my neighbour's spot when they leave for the day with some trestles. Carpet fitters arrive. Someone has left me a note on the trestles: 'What you are doing is illegal, please see Highway Code'. I can guarantee it wasn't a resident who wrote that as there's an understanding that sometimes it's necessary as parking situation had got so bad. Heard banging outside, went to investigate and found my neighbour tacking my cabling back to the wall. That was kind.

Wednesday

Back to work... boo! Got to car... don't believe it! Someone has had a good kick at the driver's door, which was next to path, and caused a big dent, estimated cost of repair £150. Get to work and ring police. State that this isn't the first time and that car had been damaged four times in the past month or so. Also asked what had happened to the community police patrols that we saw a few months ago (around the time of the elections.....coincidence?) for a few weeks.

Since then I haven't seen any police, except for a period when they terrorised my neighbours and myself. Seems they had mistaken our street for an adjacent one and came to bash down his door in the early hours of the morning on half a dozen occasions. Despite pointing out that they had the wrong address, it kept on happening. Three or four complaints to the police later, eventually it stopped.

Also contacted the council's York Pride action line to ask for new street signs as the current ones are unreadable and maybe that was why the police kept on getting the wrong street. They said it would be a couple of weeks for the new signs. That was back in June and still nothing.

Thursday

Police left me a message on mobile as I was driving to work. Rang back and left message to give me a call back. Rang again at dinner and left another message. I understand that there are more important crimes for them to deal with but I'm not going to let them forget about me. Decide to drop note round to everyone on the street about the crime problems recently. Not sure what the response will be but feel I should make the effort. Four people came round... wasn't expecting that. Some stated that they've had so many problems recently they admit to becoming apathetic, but we all agreed that we'd start being more vocal and report all incidents and maybe something will be done about it.

Friday

Arrive back, can't find a spot to park. That's unusual for an evening. I see... there's a football match. York City always talk about working with the community but doing a simple thing such as publishing the schedule of home games and posting it to neighbouring streets would be a small effort and would help as we'd know when our lives would be disrupted by the noise, parking issues etc. Really want to go out and move my car back closer to the house but don't really like leaving house after dark anymore, especially not on a Friday night. Police haven't returned my call.

Saturday

After the first half of the week things seemed to have calmed down. Leaflet from the residents association has been dropped through my door regarding the Arc Light Reprovision Project. Can't wait for that to be built on my doorstep. Just what we need to improve the quality of our lives! Still waiting for police to return my call. I have an idea, why don't they turn the Shipton Street site into a police station, that's what we really need around here.

Awoken around midnight by shouting in the street. Go to window and discover that some bloke is urinating on my car bonnet. I despair, I really do.

Updated: 09:09 Tuesday, September 06, 2005