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Street Crime UK

Police officers arresting a man
  • Posted at 11:20am
  • 03 September 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 1 comment

It's odd, isn't it, that Big Brother is referred to as reality television. I don't know what constitutes reality in your home, but it's been a while since I dressed up as Little Bo Peep and tried to glue pieces of sweetcorn back on the cob.

No, what I need after three months of surreal antics on Channel 4 is something stark, something grim, something that will remind me not to skip gaily around the centre of Cardiff singing "I'm a Little Teapot" when the pubs are closing. And Street Crime UK provides a pretty effective reminder.

The trailer promises an "action-packed show from Crawley and Romford". If you can't imagine that, it's 20-odd minutes of inner-city disturbances, drug dealers trying to escape arrest by climbing a tree – yes, you read that right, a tree – and people just giving each other a good, honest kicking in a car park.

As the police wade in, everyone shouts, "Get your hands off me!", accompanied by Olympic-standard swearing. As a result, the sound is muted for large swathes of the programme, allowing you to play a fantastic game of inserting your own expletives to match the action. Bonus points are available for getting in an "Aaargh" or "Gnnnnh" as the offenders are wrestled to the floor.

But while the drunken stars of the show are struck by beer cans or discarded shoes, you're struck by both their passion and commitment to pointless violence, and the devotion of the cheering crowd. They love it. They don't want it to stop. Any anger at being apprehended by the fuzz is nothing to do with the ignominy that arrest will heap upon their families – nope, it's just the fury that their fun has been curtailed.

At one point during last Saturday's programme (1 September, 11pm, Ftn) two brothers start knuckling each other around the face and, as the police approach, the excitable crowd tries to reassure them that "nothing's happening, nothing's happening" – despite the fact that the siblings have rammed their fingers up each other’s nostrils in a gesture of brotherly solidarity.

Later in the show one chap says, "No, I've not been fighting", his ear lobes ripped to pieces and his shirt soaked in blood. All around him, a crowd of people are whistling, hands in pockets, waiting for the TV cameras and police to disappear so they can get stuck in again.

"Well," says the policeman to camera, "We have just arrived here on the scene, and..." he looks around, suspiciously, "we've found several parties who appear to be no longer fighting." With the offence of "no longer fighting" currently absent from the statute book, the police can do nothing, except drive off and wait for the next call.

But they don't have to wait long – there's breaking news that "someone is being hit with something" outside Chicken Ranch. Back to life; back to reality.

Street Crime UK is on Saturdays and Sundays on Ftn (Sky 153, Virgin 123, Freeview 20) and weekdays on Bravo (Sky 121, Virgin 138/406).

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  • Posted on 25 March 2009
  • at 6:10pm
  • by sue

I have now watched quite a few episodes of street crime uk and I'm absolutely horrified by what I've seen. Time after time you see gangs of viscious hooligans attacking people in the street for no reason whatsover. I've seen these people on the street myself, hanging around on street corners, causing trouble, usually in gangs of two or three but they get all their mates to join in once theyve started a bit of trouble. They'll attack anyone for no reason whatsover, use foul language, and the problem is that no-one does a thing about it. It's even more incredible that these are the people who are supposed to be protecting us from crime, but instead of that, they are causing it to happen. A harmless squabble between a couple of brothers results in four people being attacked, put in handcuffs and carted away by these thugs. We have to watch this, while listening to a totally distorted account of what is happening by an overpaid reporter. I have an acqaintance who works with these people and he tells me that solving crimes is no longer an issue in the police force. Now they have cctv they can waste all their time bulking up the statistics by responding to the slightest possibility of a disturbance. This really works for them, because as we've seen they manage to start their own wherever they go. Their results go up and it looks as if they are doing a better job. Where they had 50 crimes before with a nought percent success rate, the cctv, with their assistance, gives them 100 crimes with a 50% success rate. Do they think we're so stupid we can't work it out? Why doesn't someone do something to get these thugs off our streets? It's sickening that they can get away with it. Drug addicts are notoriously stupid, and if people are getting away with selling over a long period then it has to be with Police compliance. I have said this for years without anyone believing me, but now at last it's been proved. Now it's time to get rid of the rest of them. We need our own Serpico before it's too late.

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