Safe As Houses?

This is a camera phone photo taken from the Victoria Park Regent’s Canal visitor mooring. It is a picture of the canal, lock, and Old Ford road. It is a better representation of the late year visibility standard in the early evening and at night. Plenty of people continue to use the towpath after dark, predominantly cyclists, and boaters returning to their boats, but joggers and pedestrians also. Many people believe that this stretch of towpath is safe at night. I have been a boater for over 3 years and I’ve been a visitor to the waterways for over 6 years. Until the incidents of 2012, I never considered this stretch of the towpath to be an unsafe place. I continued to feel safe after my boat was burgled in 2011 on the Duckett’s Cut along Victoria Park. The times I felt uncomfortable coming home alone wouldn’t be more than a couple before Autumn 2012. I wish I could figure out the root causes of why the criminal activity on the towpath has increased, but I do not have the degrees in social, economic, or criminological studies for deeper consideration of the issues. My heart tells me there are many factors involved. It could be austerity, boredom (lack of alternative activities), the rise in the profile of boats (targets) in the public consciousness, and the canals being one of the last places in London with minimal camera coverage. These factors and more could be the driving forces behind the towpath crime wave. What I know is the timeline I made demonstrating an escalation of the criminal activity beginning in Autumn 2012:

13/10/2012- First burglary of the series.

17/10/2012- Total of 3 boats burgled

21/10/2012- 10 boats burgled on this one evening. All boats on Victoria Park mooring vacate, leaving one boat whose owner was away. (If this were to happen again, we should take any unmanned boats with us).

28/10/2012- Two separate community meetings discussing issues around safety were held.

03/11/2012- Start of a weekend of additional burglaries, totalling 5 boats, including at least 1, which the owner was alerted of the crime situation by the community organiser a few days prior.

06/11/2012- One attempted break-in at the Mile End moorings (probably unrelated to the organised Victoria Park burglaries).

11/11/2012- Meeting at the Palm Tree Pub consisting of boaters, Metropolitan Police Marine Unit, C&RT reps, and Metropolitan Police Crime Prevention rep. This was the first meeting where boaters discussed Victoria Park moorings lighting issue with C&RT and Crime Prevention Rep.

03/01/2012- Boaters witnessed youths going along Victoria Park moorings looking at locks on boats. 999 called.

04/01/2012-Boater on Victoria Park mooring took photos of the youths who were again checking out the boats. 999 called, youths apprehended; more details pending.

17/01/13- After a run of prank level vandalism, including people jumping on boats, boats mooring ropes getting cut and boats set adrift during the night, the vandalism moved to life threatening levels. In the early morning, a rope tied to the roof of a boat had its other end tied to the fence of Victoria Park creating a ‘clothesline’, which a commuter cycled into and suffered a skull fracture and a partially paralysed face. 

10/02/13- Two separate cyclists were mugged on the Towpath, one by Victoria Park and the other along the stretch between Broadway Market and Victoria Park.

While these events were taking place, boaters contacted representatives of Canal and River Trust, and Victoria Park in an attempt to get lighting installed on this stretch of towpath, but neither organisation had the funding to provide this safety measure. For a little while concerned boaters gave up on getting lights in Victoria Park. That feeling lasted through the relatively quiet time of Spring and Summer 2013, but the Autumn brought more burglaries taking the criminal activity to a much more frightening level. What’s happened since will be the focus of future posts.  

–Keith Brown Community Organiser Lower Lee and Regent’s Canal