Serious mugging with violence, and gang-related issues

There is no nice way to report on this. A friend's daughter was the victim of a serious mugging on Tuesday in the Russia Dock Woodland on her way home from work, in the afternoon. I regret to say that I was in the park a bit earlier that day and I saw a whole group of kids on bicycles, one of whom yelled "cover your faces". Not being in anyway experienced with this sort of thing I assumed that they were just being melodramatic. They must have been in the 13/16 year age range. Maybe they were involved, maybe they weren't. I'll take photographs next time.

Here is what my friend had to say (keeping his name private for the sake of his daughter's privacy). I've copied his email in full because there is no way of improving on it and it needs to be said:

[Re graffiti on Stave Hill]. It beggars belief that it has taken nearly three weeks for the environmental dept to work this out. This is not rocket science. There is some graffiti at the top of stave hill which is inaccessible to the first teams equipment. If that is the case then there should be a simple procedure where the first team then automatically contact the second 'specialist team' to inform them of what type of graffiti is on the sculpture and they should act accordingly. very, very, straight forward and simple. This is the type of thing that gets Southwark Council a bad name. Can you please explain to me how it has taken all this time to come to this simple conclusion. As I have stated before, this is like the broken window effect. If you leave it too long then you will get more broken windows, the same is with graffiti. The next thing we will be talking about is can we build a wall near, or in, the woodlands, so graffiti artists can show their work. this is not a joke, it has been mentioned before at various meetings.

For your information. There was a serious assault on my 16 year old daughter in Russia Dock Woodland on Tuesday afternoon of this week. She was returning from her new place of work at 16.10 pm when she was mugged, and punched in the face, by a gang of four youths calling themselves the 'Peckham Young Guns'. She is ok but shocked. This gang went on to mug another youth 10 minutes later. The police robbery victim response team were on the spot immediately. They were efficient, professional, and meant business, and have arrested one of the four cowards who was attempting to steal bicycles from outside Surrey Quays Shopping Centre. I was told by the officers that this so called 'robbery victim support team' are going to be re-instated to another department after the 6th of october this year. From what I can make out they are not happy about this and will lose their quick response effectiveness which i have now seen first hand.

The point I am trying to make here is that there is a definite link between the graffiti, and the attack. You may not be able to see it but I can. This is territorial, and graffiti is all part of the game. They told my daughter to tell the 'downtown boys' that 'their time is over we are taking over'...This is what the graffiti statement on stave hill is saying O.TERRITORY is a tag for our territory!!!...

I have been in touch with Malcolm Tillyer chief of Southwark Police to express my grave concerns regarding the re- deployment of something that I have seen working effectively at first hand.

I have got to go. I have to escort my daughter home from work very shortly. what a country we live in...

Horrific. Absolutely horrific.