BECKENHAM: Community Fear (From News Shopper)

BECKENHAM: Community Fear

9:11pm Tuesday 18th May 2010 in Beckenham By Charlotte Fuller - community correspondent

In a town where the regular sounds of the night are police helicopters flying over houses as you sleep in your bed and sirens in a nearby street dealing with an argument it’s not surprising that more and more people are starting to feel unsafe in their own home.

Especially in areas such as Penge, where there are few things to do of an evening, the amount of teenagers loitering around the streets is increasing steadily. Perhaps if there were more youth groups, we would see instances of mindless crime decrease. The biggest crime offence in Penge is anti-social behaviour, closely followed by violence, which hearing the amount of gang rivalry is not a huge revelation.

But perhaps far more worrying are the levels of organised crime, mostly culminating in various scams designed to trick people out of money and possessions. One of the most frequent scams at the minute is bogus charity collectors, who knock door to door collecting for a ‘good cause’. The local police are advising to be wary and check for identification, as all collectors are required by law to carry badges issued by the charity that they are collecting for.

Another popular scam that has recently hit the area is the Sky TV scam. A company will call up a homeowner offering special deals or upgrades to Sky TV which is accompanied with a request of credit card details.

While the police are doing all they can, it is hard to cope with the amount of crime that is hitting the area. Something has to give soon, or law-abiding citizens may soon be too scared to even go past the front door past six’ o’clock.