We live on the UK’s ‘most dangerous’ street – thugs throw Molotov cocktails at people…we desperately need help
LOCALS on a London street where a man appeared to throw a petrol bomb at a car in broad daylight have said the area is blighted by crack houses, shootings and stabbings.
Video footage emerged this week showing a man walking down Gresham Road in West London with what appeared to be a Molotov cocktail type petrol bomb as families looked on.
A schoolgirl and her mother were seen watching as the man strolled past them with the device.
A man tried to throw the device, which exploded in the street. Police later attended the scene and a man has been arrested.
A witness claimed the incident involved a bailiff who had come to remove a car from the area.
A woman who lives opposite the crime scene with her mum, and did not want to be named, said: “I think one of the neighbours got a bit angry with a bailiff that had come to clamp a car.
“We just heard the escalation – he had a petrol can in his hand and was threatening for a little while, then he put something in a bottle and lit that on fire.
“He was running up the road chasing people with it – the pick-up truck driver [who was] the bailiff, and a couple of neighbours had come out.
“He did actually throw it across the road at one of the boys across the road, that almost caught him but he got in his house just in time – was in his early twenties, he came out to move his car so his car didn’t get towed, and then he was just on the street and the guy just went for him.
“He just went for anybody really. It wasn’t even his car, I think he must have been outside because he usually sits outside having a cigarette, he might have seen the bailiff trying to clamp the car.
“He was mainly saying ‘why don’t you leave us alone?’ It escalated out of nowhere, but like I say, I do think he’s got mental health problems anyway.
“Recently there’s been a lot of stuff like this, not like petrol bombing, that was quite extreme what he did, but there’s been quite a few incidents around here recently.”
The woman said said the petrol bomb attack is the latest in a wave of shocking incidents to blight the area.
She said there have been multiple stabbings on the street leading into Gresham Road from the North Circular, Woodheyes Road.
The woman added: “My mum’s been here since 1971, so the road’s changed quite drastically over the last five years.
“A lot of the housing has been converted into multiple occupancy (HMO), and a lot of those are sold to the council, so there are a lot of people with mental health conditions that are placed here.
“There’s definitely well to do people and things, but the house where that happened had been quite turbulent for the last two years.
“Most of the people on this side, on the side where the person lives, are quite elderly.
“There’s still quite a good sense of community, people look out for each other, but when things like that happen it’s really scary.
“Our nearest police station is Wembley, there’s one in Harlesden, but I don’t think they have officers stationed there.
“It took police a good half an hour, 40 minutes, for the police to get here because I’m sure the bailiff would have called them as soon as things escalated.
“It took them a really long time to come and the fire brigade came as well. The police are doing all they can but they keep closing all the stations so there’s not much they can do if they’re not close by.”
She added that arguments often happen inside HMO but spill onto the street.
Her mum, who also did not want to be named, said two similarly “turbulent” houses sit opposite each other and occupants are constantly arguing.
She said: “There’s an old lady next door, she’s afraid to come outside. They’re scared.
“It had nothing to do with him. We know the owner of the car and she was sleeping, she didn’t even know.
“I just know that it was a red car, she drives a red car. But we don’t know her, because over the last five years we don’t know nobody anymore.
“Before everybody knew everybody, now people come for three months, six months, they go on again. Everybody keeps themselves to themselves.”
The woman who works in the area said these incidents were very typical and reported watching a shoplifter pull a knife on a Lidl security guard while she had breakfast in the local supermarket just an hour before the fire bomb attack.
She said: “I tried to get to my car but the fire engines were blocking my way through.
“One of the neighbours told me that someone came to tow a car away and the guy obviously came out and obviously went to throw a petrol bomb at him.
“That morning I went to have breakfast in Lidl and there was a shoplifter and he was beating up a security guard, and he came out with a knife. I was like okay, that drama has finished, then I came here and I couldn’t get to my car because this happened.
“Literally this is what it’s like around here, it’s so bad. This stuff happens around here all the time.
“It’s all crack houses around here, a house round there is boarded up because late last year he got murdered – he got beaten up really severely and then they came round back for him and done him in, so it’s all boarded up.
“There was private security outside to make sure no one entered the crime scene, the next thing the guy came down and tried to stab the security guys with a knife.
“There were gunshots recently. Stay around here for a week or two, it all goes down.
“I feel scared when I walk to my car. People are blatantly smoking crack all down here in the daytime. There are like four crack houses just here where the fire attack happened.
“This is only a snippet, one road in Neasden, they’re all like this. It didn’t used to be like this, obviously there’s no police around really because it’s all done in the open.”
Describing some of the strange events now-common to Gresham Road, she pointed to one man in a blue suit and said he walks around pretending to be a doctor.
She said: “He goes around pretending to be a doctor, he says to me you shouldn’t be smoking it’s no good for you, then I put the fag butt on the floor and picks it up and starts smoking it, he just goes up and down.”
Another resident who has lived on Gresham Road for 40 years said the street is plagued by shouting and drug-taking.
The man, who did not want to be named, said: “They came to lift the car, there was a big truck on the road there. They came to take the car away because it hadn’t got a permit.
“There was fire brigade, police, the road went on fire where the sand is.
“They had a black man down on the floor outside the house, they must have tasered him because there were loads of police with taser guns.
“I was watching the TV and I didn’t hear nothing until I came outside, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, all the police and fire brigade and more police coming with sirens blaring. They were here until around 1pm.”
Describing the house opposite the alleged arsonist’s, which is reportedly also used for drug-dealing, he said: “There’s every kind of thing that happens here.
“People are here three, four, five o’clock in the morning while I’m trying to sleep, that happens constantly. You don’t feel comfortable like.
“There’s a lot of people coming in and out of the house. It’s drugs, I come here at all times there’s weird people.
“They show up at the window at all hours of the morning. Everybody knows what’s going on.
“Going back a year or so ago I looked out the window in the night and saw there were half a dozen police outside with guns.”
A Met Police spokesperson said: “Police were called at 8.15am on Wednesday, 14 June to Gresham Road, NW10.
A man was reported to have thrown petrol at a car before attempting to set it alight.
“A man was arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life and assault on an emergency worker. No reports of any injuries. Enquiries are ongoing.”