Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2006
JASON LORD
COVER, HAYLEY
LITTEK, DEXTER
PADMORE, LEON
SIMMONDS, BIANCA
WAITE AND
JULIA WOLTON
Q160 Chairman: Jason, can I follow
that up. You were talking about an involvement in robbery. How
common is it for people who go out to rob to carry weapons intending
to use them or at least to threaten with them?
Jason: I cannot answer that question.
From my perspective, in my previous there has been no violence,
so I am not really a violent offender anyway. Certain people use
violence where the victim will not co-operate, therefore they
would use that for the threat, but obviously at the same time
they just want the goods.
Q161 Chairman: Do you have a view
on the same question? Do people usually carry knives if they are
going out to rob? Is that because they plan to use them or threaten
with them?
Leon: From my perspective, people
do not go out with knives to actually use to rob people because
they see it as that would be a bigger sentence, you might as well
say. If I was to rob not using no knife or nothing and you was
taken to court, the sentence would be shorter, but if you was
to use a knife or something, that would make something more serious.
I do not think people actually do go out there with the intention
to use a knife to rob someone or anything.
Q162 Chairman: Dexter.
Dexter: Basically saying what
Leon said: people do not go out intentionally to use it, just
to protect themselves, but not everyone uses weapons. People think
everyone uses weapons, not everyone. The previous robbery I was
convicted for there was no weapons or violence involved, nothing
like that.
Q163 Chairman: If this question is
completely unfair say so, but I will put it to you anyway. There
was the dreadful murder of the young lawyer who was stabbed near
the tube station that was in all the press recently. When you
looked at that story, which was in all the newspapers and on television,
and you saw the young men who had been sent down for life for
that murder, did you, as people who used to be involved in robbery,
think, "That could have been me", or was that just something
in a completely different type of league or activity? Is it the
same slippery slope or is it totally different?
Dexter: From what I saw that was
completely different. I do not know no-one that is like that.
So that was just something new for me. I have not seen nothing
like that before.
Q164 Chairman: Leon.
Leon: I have not known or seen
anyone that has gone through that extent of killing someone to
get what they want.
Q165 Ms Buck: Can I pick up something
that Bianca said, and maybe one or two of the others of you have
said, about wanting "stuff" and "your stuff"
and either wanting it or protecting what you have got. What are
we talking about? What is the "stuff" that we are talking
about?
Bianca: Money to survive.
Q166 Ms Buck: For what?
Bianca: For everything—clothes,
trainers, jewellery, everything—those things that are essentials
to them, which is things like clothes. If they have got kicked
out of home, they are not in school, they are not getting employed,
they have not got nowhere else to get the money from, so they
see everybody else making money quick and think, "Yes, I
want that", and start doing things to get that, but obviously,
at the same time, it is just to survive. They cannot keep on doing
it, they do not want to do it, it is just that they know there
is no other way out. There is people that try to go through the
legal way, people that is too young to even get employed, so they
turn to the illegal life.
Q167 Ms Buck: Can I ask you what
you think about that. Partly it is about age. There is a different
question if you are kind of 18, 19 maybe—and if you are
not at home you have got to live, that is one thing—but
maybe when you are a bit younger it is about what kind of stuff
do you feel that you have to have that you cannot get any other
way. Can I ask somebody else? Hayley.
Hayley: For younger people, it
is more they want to be like the older people they see, because
that is their role models, the people on the street. A lot of
the young people these days, their parents are not around because
they are busy at work, or whatever, trying to put food on the
table, so young people do not have real role models, and they
look up to the people they see out on the street with all the
latest phones, and big chains, and watches, and all the new trainers
and new tracksuits and they want that too. They want to be just
like the older people that they see. They think they are successful
because they have all the latest stuff, so that is what they want
to be. That is why a lot of the time they will go through it,
the younger people.
Julia: I want to come in here
because working with these young people a lot of it is about basic
survival. We are not talking about fashion items and things. For
some of the young people I work with it is about finding money
for rent, even when they are underage at 14 or 15, it is about
finding food, so some of it is basic needs. I just want to emphasise
that.
Q168 Ms Buck: That is fair enough.
I am not trying to draw a conclusion on this; I am interested
in knowing from you what is the balance. Is it about, for some
people, survival, is it about aspiring to a particular look or
lifestyle that you cannot work out on the money you have got?
Bianca: It is also about—.
When I said those people that are doing this crime and drugs and
that that does not want to do it, it is also about they have tried
the legal way, they have tried to go in college, have not got
in college, got kicked out of school, so they have not got the
qualifications to do that, but if they cannot get jobs, they cannot
get employed, they go for the wrong-side lifestyle. If you speak
to most of them they will tell you that they do not want to be
in this, they want to just make enough to get their mum out of
this, they do not want their mum living in an area like this.
They are not really enjoying it, because if they were enjoying
it they would want to be in it forever. They want to get out.
Q169 Ms Buck: Can I take a view from
Dexter or Leon?
Leon: I will just say that people
do it as a thing where the way the world is you need a name, like,
on your estate. You need that type of status. If you are living
on an estate, that type of estate where a lot of gang-related
things are going on and a lot of robberies are going on, you feel,
not like you have got to be involved but like there is no other
way of doing things, if you see what I am saying. There is no
other route out unless something could happen if you do not do
this or if you do not do that, like they may try a switch on you,
or you are thinking about your family's health or something like
this if you do not do this, what they might do to your family.
Q170 Ms Buck: I was going to move
on to this issue about gangs and crews and what you feel is the
difference, where it starts. Both of you have talked about estates
with a very strong gang culture. Is that everywhere? Where does
it start?
Bianca: It is territorial issues.
Q171 Ms Buck: Territorial?
Bianca: Yes. That is what it used
to be, that is what it has always been, but it has just escalated
over the years and it has just got to the point where no-one is
picking up fists, everyone is picking up guns. That is why it
has just got so bad.
Q172 Ms Buck: What about you two?
Do you all live on estates? Everyone here grew up on an estate?
Bianca: Yes.
Dexter: Yes. Basically, everyone
thinks that someone who joins a gang is doing it for a negative
reason, or whatever, but there is not enough choice here. Basically
some people are not really raised with love or whatever, so the
only place where they are going to find love is from the streets
or from their friends. People say gangs this and gangs that, and
that is when they get involved with the gangs.
Q173 Ms Buck: What age do you feel
you started either being a part of that or seeing other people
being part of it?
Hayley: It is getting younger.
I have seen kids at the age of about nine, 10 joining gangs. Their
family—. Like Dexter was saying, what you do not get at
home—. Everyone has needs as humans. If you do not get it
at home you will find it somewhere else, and the street is the
next place. It is on your doorstep, the gangs are outside your
house, you see them everywhere you go and if they are offering
what you need, you will take it.
Q174 Ms Buck: Is there a difference
between your mates and a gang that is more organised and is part
of a criminal scene?
Hayley: No, because a gang is
what people decide to call it. Friends are friends, business partners
are business partners; associates are associates. What people
want to label it is when it comes down to that. I see it as I
have friends, I have associates and I have people that I work
with and what not, that is how I see it, and I see it the same
with gangs. If you are committing a crime, I see it as business
partners. If you are selling drugs, you have business partners,
you have your associates and you have your friends. It is the
same, it is just how people perceive you, or how they want to
label you, or what they decide they want to call you.
Q175 Ms Buck: We are coming at this,
as John said, inquiring into young black people and the criminal
justice system. To what extent is this more of a black phenomena?
Your experience is that it is territorial, but is it also black?
Our city is incredibly multi-racial. Is there something that is
partly defined as black against other groups, Kurdish, or whatever?
Hayley: No.
Q176 Ms Buck: Is it all mixed?
Bianca: It is the whole system.
Hayley: When you look at most
estates you will find there is a majority of black people on those
estates. The majority of families on estates are black people.
Q177 Ms Buck: It depends where you
are.
Hayley: Well, in Lambeth.
Bianca: If it was multi-cultural
it would have been mixed cultures. There is no mixed cultures.
Hayley: The majority of the people
on the estates in Lambeth are black families. There is a lot of
black children and young people that will be friends with each
other, grow up with each other and be gangs, whatever people want
to call it. That is why it may seem more like a culture thing,
but it is not a culture thing at all, because there are gangs
where there are 10 black people and one white person and an Indian
boy or a Chinese girl. I have seen it happen, but it is just a
majority of people on the estates in Lambeth.
Bianca: It is what gets shown.
It is what we are perceived as.
Hayley: And what people choose
to see as well.
Bianca: Yes, it is what people
choose to see. They choose to see the negative side, they choose
to say, yes, it is the black people.
Q178 Ms Buck: I am asking you what
you think. I am asking you what your experience is, not what I
perceive. There are other estates where I live where the vast
majority of people on that estate are very mixed—Turkish,
Kosovans, all sorts of different communities—and you can
still see the gangs there, which is territorial, and sometimes
you see conflicts between them, which is also partly territorial.
I am just interested in knowing what your experience is.
Hayley: It is not culture in Lambeth.
Q179 Ms Buck: What about the policing
relationship from your community? Has it all been negative? Has
it changed?
Hayley: No. Lambeth has changed
from a good couple of years ago, but since I have been around
and been in contact with the police and known of the police most
of my experiences with them or things that I have seen with them
are negative, but there are positive police officers. It is down
to the individual what they want to do, why they join the police
force, and that depends on how they carry out their job. So, really
and truthfully, I do not want to say that it is negative, but
the majority of it is, but there is some positive policing as
well.
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