Rising crime rates ‘threaten to tear Easton community apart’

The Easton community has experienced more than its share of challenges and crime over the years, with residents recently mourning the loss of Kunta Ceesay.

But those who live and work in BS5 have always been steadfast in owning the fact that the persistent problems in the area do not diminish the culture, colour and character of the place; choosing not to approach these issues and those who choose to commit crimes with animosity and callousness, but compassion and patience.

However, a recent escalation of crime, specifically drugs and violence, is threatening to “tear the community apart” according to one resident. His exhaustion and the community’s collective struggle to manage the persistent antisocial behaviour, has left them with little to no more left to give.

These issues, coupled with a distinct sense of frustration with the perceived lack of police action, has them reaching out to other leaders such as the church.

The resident, who has requested to remain anonymous, believes that not only has the crime got worse but that normalisation of the occurrence of those issues has resulted in a lack of action in tackling these issues.

These issues, according to multiple members of the community, tend to be localised to specific areas, including Stapleton Road and the adjoining streets.

The resident, who is in his 40s, has lived just off Stapleton Road for 18 years, witnessing first hand how drugs have ravished the most vulnerable in society.

It was a bit sketchy when he first moved to the area, he tells me, but that never really bothered them. Then around 2010, local boys would “hang out en masse all night not far from my house on the street” taking nitrous oxide.

In the beginning, residents would approach the boys, asking them politely to dispose of their litter or move it along if they were creating too much of a disturbance.

“They’re pretty much kids,” he tells me. “We’ve seen a lot of these kids grow up. They were coming to hang out because they couldn’t hang out at their parents’ house.

“I had a good relationship with them, but then it evolved into there being no respect, them hanging on our neighbour’s fence.”

After having to repetitively ask them, he says it became apparent that “they didn’t care”, and so he started to lose his patience, telling them to “fuck off and to stop littering etc”. He added they would come here and sit in their cars.

“They would come here sitting in their cars being rowdy as hell, sometimes there’d be nitrous for 15 to 20 people and two or three cars blasting music.”

They would turn up at all times of the day and night and it would be “relentless”.

People have been regularly congregating in the area – photo: Bristol24/7

Around a decade ago, a community meeting took place which brought together councillors, drug officers, Somali elders and shopkeepers. “We had a couple of good meetings like that,” the resident recalled. Ultimately though, nothing substantial changed.

CCTV was installed on the street but that only pushed those using and supplying further round the corner he says.

The few locals using in the area then turned into people from further afield coming to Easton to “party in the streets” and “leave their rubbish and treat the place like a urinal”.

Cars would come and go throughout the night and despite ringing the police, the resident says, “often by the time the police arrived, if they did, those causing the disturbance were gone”.

That would be the theme for years and years, with respite sometimes for a month or two when it would inexplicably quieten down. Leading the residents to optimistically believe that it might have moved on, but even then it haunted them.

“This is how deranged I was. I’d be in the lounge thinking I’m hearing noise and then I opened the window, and it’s totally empty. That’s how much it’s affecting the brain.”

Throughout the years, he has found knives hidden in bushes, received death threats, witnessed people with “needles hanging out their arm” while being slumped up against his wall, and most recently a man on a moped being racially abused to which, he claims, no police showed up to.

“There were points when I started losing the plot, where I was unafraid to confront ten or 15 men. But eventually, you just become exhausted and I was sobbing at the house.

“I’m a bit more desensitised now. You build this sort of tolerance, which means you’ve got sustained anxiety, whereas then I wasn’t used to that.

“Because I wasn’t used to the paranoia, I was thinking bad things about people, and being in constant flight mode.”

He believes it has now escalated into more deadly drugs such as crack and heroin.

Litter and mess is always left behind by people using – photo: Bristol24/7

The resident, whose job takes him across Bristol, contacted the police numerous times over the years. He showed Bristol24/7 multiple incident numbers logged with the police after filing reports; as well as photos and videos of incidents of drug taking, dealing and violence. He has also been in regular contact his councillors.

He says that the police have on occasion responded to his calls and he has seen riot vans in the area. The area was then “flagged” he says. When he would ring emergency services and speak with the operator, a script would be followed, a script he says he got so used to hearing that he was “answering them before they were even asked”.

Some of the operators were great. Others didn’t even know what nitrous oxide is, calling it “nitrogen peroxide”.

That got a bit tedious he says: “If I choose to wake up, and make that phone call, that means I’m going to be waiting for an hour or two hours, because you get really agitated interacting.

“You ring multiple times, and we keep being told by the police for years now, keep calling it, because that creates a case. I’ve just stopped because I called so many times that it didn’t help in any way.

“I understand things are hard, but you have to understand that we keep ringing you, and no one seems to be doing anything to say it’s not fair, because this wouldn’t happen in Clifton Village.”

Jenny Bartle is a Green Party councillor for the Easton ward – photo: Green Party Bristol

One of the councillors who has been in contact with the residents is Jenny Bartle. “I can’t go to the gym without seeing a drug deal go down, people using, sitting down the back of the Easton Leisure Centre and I can see why people feel unsafe,” they told Bristol24/7.

However, while their experience has generally been seeing people doing it “out of the way,” they haven’t seen aggression during these incidents.

They add; “It’s really concerning to me to hear that the police aren’t reacting. Because whenever I talk to the police, they always just say, ‘Oh, we’ve got to report it.’

“And there comes a point at which you think, how many times do we have to report this before we think something should happen? And I suppose that’s a question I don’t know the answer to.

“The police’s priorities have been changing quite a lot recently. I think as local councillors, we’re probably going to start to really ask them to reprioritise and commit to doing a bit more.

“But we really want to do our part in finding other ways to get people off, like out of trouble.”

Bartle believes that a more compassionate approach from the council and government may help decrease some of the issues: “I think that’s how people in the local area would prefer things to be like. We don’t want to criminalise people having mental health issues.

“We don’t want to just throw people in jail for like, suffering from a problem that isn’t really in their control.”

Bartle highlights that used drug paraphernalia such as syringes, should be taken to needle exchanges, which can be located throughout Bristol, with the Green Party also looking into the idea of safer drug consumption services.

The councillor said that their top priorities are “talking to the committee that’s in charge of waste and doing a tour with them and a few of our council officers. Speaking to the police as much as they can, and generally trying to get a bit more attention into the area.

“I’m also working with the high streets regeneration team, to see if I can get any more sort of concrete stuff delivered, like infrastructure upgrades and things like that.

“From the position of a local ward councillor, we get involved in these multi agency meetings in order to make sure that we’re covering as many bases as we can, yeah, and that we’re communicating in the ways that we need to.

“Obviously, it does take longer, you know not. It’s not something that one person can solve.”

Discarded nos canisters are an all-too familiar sight – photo: Hannah Massoudi

The area around Kensington Baptist Church, situated at the bottom of Stapleton Road, has become a hotspot for people experiencing homelessness and for drug users to engage in their habit.

Pastor Simon is someone who regularly interacts with residents, and has become increasingly concerned about the number of people who have echoed similar experiences.

Emphasising how he had three conversations in 24 hours on that subject, he says: “That would be the first time in that 13 years I had that number of people, so close together to mention the same issue.

“So, it just gives you an indication. I think the community at times can feel a little bit unsupported. You’ll have picked that up. I’m sure chatting to people, that some of the frustration may be that in this part of the city, people could be feeling a little bit forgotten.”

Pastor Simon’s attitude to the problem and the community encapsulates much of what the resident has told us.

He explains the difficulty of wanting to help all people in the community feel seen, feel supported but that some people’s actions, namely those creating these issues in the area, are negatively affecting the rest of the community.

“I want to stress to you that our desire remains to care for and help people who perhaps are facing some particular life challenges, but we always want to do it in a way that is safe and legal. We never want to encourage people to do things that just are lacking social cohesion, care and respect for shop owners and residents.”

He confirms that although the crime fluctuates, that within the last few months, he too has seen a level of crime that he hasn’t seen before.

“The supplying of it is so blatant and obvious, it’s not really even hidden. I think they’re kind of lines that you cross, that you think, oh, this is kind of moving into a more of a serious issue.

“If residents are being threatened, and they are, I think you would just want more of a response from local authorities.”

Pastor Simon has been in residence at the church for 13 years – photo: Hannah Massoudi

Pastor Simon is sympathetic to the police’s efforts to address the needs across the city on limited resources, explaining how they “helped us with removing some of the phone boxes” which were being used for illicit activities.

But that support tends to “ebb and flow” which he suggests might bare a correlation to the waves of crime.

When asked if, as more of the community approaches the church seeking solutions, do they feel more responsibility to take action he ruminates for a while on what a long term solution might look like.

“You’ve got to have the security and foundation of local authority support, because we’re a church, not a police station.”

The church itself has reported problems to the police, with pastor Simon admitting that perhaps that is something they need more of.

Overall, he thinks that lots of other factors are contributing to the residents of Easton feeling forgotten. Flytipping for example, he mentions is a big issue that gives the sense that the Easton community is being neglected.

Like everyone else I speak to, pastor Simon is keen to drive home that Easton is a great place, regardless of its challenges and you shouldn’t tar it with the same brush.

“It’s sad then that these should be some of the challenges that are being unaddressed. There is irony there. Because surely this place should be flourishing. The diversity and the people from all kinds of backgrounds, is the real kind of multicultural we should be.

“It has every component to be great, so, how come then that these, these challenges, these issues, aren’t being addressed?”

Despite the areas challenges, the church regularly fills out during services. Remaining a central place of worship for many of the congregation – photo: Hannah Massoudi

Those who live and work in Easton are clear that there has been a certain level of normalisation of the issues their area faces, and as a result these issues have been allowed to spread unchecked, or at least not addressed on a level that is appropriate.

Despite the resilience and determination in trying to address these challenges, without the support that they feel they could be getting, it’s clear it has slowly diminished the community’s overall wellbeing.

In a statement to Bristol24/7 chief inspector Vicks Hayward-Melen, who is in charge of neighbourhood policing teams in east Bristol has said:

“We are very aware of the issues faced by people living and working in Easton because of on-street drug dealing and use and the crime and anti-social behaviour which come with it.

Tackling the impact of drug crime in our neighbourhoods is a priority for Avon and Somerset Police.

The issue is a focus for the neighbourhood team, whose role is to provide a visible presence in their area and work with partner agencies and the community to resolve long term issues.

The small team of neighbourhood PCs and PCSOs spend most of their time carrying out targeted uniformed patrols in Easton and Redfield.

Information from people who live and work in the area is vital. It helps us to build up the evidence we need to apply to the courts for warrants, to charge offenders and to bid for resources from other parts of our police service to enhance patrols or take enforcement action.

We’re also working with colleagues in 999 response and our call centre to make sure everyone understands the issues and people get the right response when they report.

We’re listening to what local people have to say and since June have held monthly meetings with Bristol City Council representatives and residents, businesses, community groups and community leaders.

The next meeting is on Tuesday October 24 at Easton Christian Family Centre.

As well as hearing about concerns, we tell people what we’re doing and ask how we can work together and for your ideas of what can improve the situation.

We’re also setting up a local working group with partner agencies and involving community representatives looking at longer-term multi-agency plans to address some of the underlying issues, rather than temporarily moving the problem elsewhere.

There can be challenges, such as when criminals exploit children and vulnerable adults to deal drugs. In these cases, we must balance dealing with the impact of that behaviour and statutory requirements for us to safeguard them.

We are making arrests and taking drugs off the streets thanks to that community information.

In the past six months we’ve taken 90 calls in which drugs were mentioned and recorded 39 drug crimes and 65 intelligence reports. We’ve arrested 18 people for drug-related offences, with four of them charged and the remainder on bail or released under investigation while we await the results of forensic tests.

Earlier this month we searched a shop on Stapleton Road under the Misuse of Drugs Act. More than 200 canisters of nitrous oxide were seized, along with substances believed to be khat and cannabis, plus cash.

Trading Standards are also involved in the investigation and have seized suspected illegal cigarettes, tobacco and vapes. This enquiry is continuing.

Last month we seized a significant amount of suspected illegal drugs, along with cash, jewellery and designer goods we think may be the proceeds of crime, from an address on Easton Road. Two people were arrested on suspicion of being concerned in Class A drug supply and have since been bailed while our enquiries continue.

What we’d say to people who want to tell us about incidents is: If you believe what you are seeing or experiencing poses an immediate risk of harm to someone, or a crime is underway, please call 999.

If you have other concerns that you feel need a police response but not immediately, you can call 101, report online or contact the neighbourhood team through our website.”

Bristol24/7 has reached out to Bristol City Council for a comment, but they have not got back to us. 

Main photo: Bristol24/7

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