On a cold, grey day in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh, a flash of bright red stands out on the sodden high street. In his scarlet fleece and waterproof gilet, Dean Harris is on the look-out for any trouble.
“If shops report a theft, we’ll go in,” he says. “We also use the radio to alert local businesses to potential issues, like rowdy groups coming into the town centre. We also deal with fly-tipping, and report graffiti. I think it changes people’s behaviour.”
Harris is one of two “town rangers” funded by Eastleigh businesses to deter criminals and troublemakers, and support the police when necessary. It is one of numerous towns across the country where desperate shopkeepers are paying for their own protection – in the form of rangers, “community wardens” and private security guards – as part of a fightback against anti-social behaviour and rocketing retail crime.
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson admitted last week that rising crime has already “driven people away from town centres”, vowing to “reclaim our streets from the gangs, the thugs and the thieves” with a surge in neighbourhood policing.
But the authorities’ lack of control became graphically apparent on Bonfire Night, when police across the country responded to yobs hurling fireworks in the street and vandalising homes and cars.
In Manchester, police responding to reports of disorder were met with a volley of fireworks from a mob who had started fires and thrown projectiles at houses, while riot police were deployed to tackle youths firing rockets at cars and a petrol station in Edinburgh.
While the amount of anti-social behaviour officially recorded by the police in recent years has fallen, figures in the Crime Survey of England and Wales – which is officially considered a more accurate measure of the behaviour – are up.
In the year to June, 36 per cent of people said they had experienced or witnessed some type of anti-social behaviour, up two per cent on the previous 12 months. The figure has jumped from just 28 per cent a decade ago, with steady increases in anti-social behaviour reported until the survey was paused for two years during the Covid pandemic.
The most common issue reported was groups hanging around in the streets. Drunkenness, “inconsiderate behaviour” and drug use or dealing were among the other most consistent problems.
Recent increases have meanwhile been reported for verbal abuse and intimidation, vandalism, graffiti and vehicle-related anti-social behaviour.
In Eastleigh, which earned the nickname “Beastleigh” in the 1990s because of the town centre’s run-down appearance, locals report a rise in such trouble.
Jasmine Bills, manager of the local Age UK charity shop, says shoplifting, in particular, is getting more frequent. It’s also becoming “nastier and more violent”, she adds.
“I’ve worked here for 24 years and it’s changed a lot,” says Bills. “We’ve got people coming in swearing, throwing things on the floor – many times I have locked the door to make sure we are safe.
“The people who do this aren’t worried if they are in a charity shop, Harrods or Tesco, they treat everyone the same.”
In recent weeks, she has witnessed street brawls through the window, while in the park across the road a display of giant poppies to commemorate Remembrance Day were smashed up by vandals.
A few doors down in the pedestrianised shopping precinct, Poundland has been seeing a pattern of combined theft and anti-social behaviour, where one member of a gang gets “rowdy” and abusive at the main entrance to distract staff while their accomplices fill their pockets.
“With teenagers specifically it’s getting quite bad at the moment,” assistant manager James Massey says.
“Two weeks ago we had people going around popping confetti cannons, spraying polish, just throwing stuff around – anything they can to annoy people. I’ve had it between the ages of nine and 18.”
Workers at the nearby Iceland supermarket report a trend of increasingly “aggressive” shoplifting, which has left staff fearing they will be physically attacked for trying to stop thieves.
Ryan Baker, the shop manager, says in his eight years working in retail the situation has worsened significantly. “I’m not sure if it’s down to boredom or it’s that they know they can get away with it – nothing seems to get done,” he adds.
“Some of them come in creating noise, being disrespectful, throwing abuse at random members of the public. It’s hard but you have to make do, it’s not going to improve any time soon.”
Such issues are common. Local councils across the country report being inundated by residents’ complaints over anti-social behaviour, which can range from noisy dirt bikes to fly-tipping, graffiti, street drinking and loitering.
Heather Kidd MBE, chair of the Local Government Association’s safer and stronger communities board, says that even small groups of young people are able to “wreak havoc” in market towns and villages.
“It’s really difficult when you’ve got a few young people who are drinking, causing vandalism, daubing things with paint and so on to make sure the police get there when they need to, and to actually nip it in the bud,” she adds.
“It does make people feel threatened, because even in a relatively safe area, people will be frightened about intervening and tackling young people.”
Kidd says that local councils have been deploying powers under public space protection orders, which prohibit certain behaviours in designated areas, and using anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) against prolific offenders but find that problems can “just move to the next place”.
Others warn of the dire consequences of failing to address such issues. Baroness Helen Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, says that while anti-social behaviour is sometimes dubbed “low-level”, it can escalate into serious crime and even lead to suicide and murder.
The watchdog, who was made a Conservative life peer for her campaigning, believes that police, councils, housing associations and other authorities are leaving victims at risk by failing to “join the dots” between incidents.
Her husband, Garry Newlove, was beaten to death by a group of drunken teenagers in 2007 after confronting them about the vandalism of his wife’s car outside their Warrington home.
“It was anti-social behaviour that led to Garry’s death,” Lady Newlove says. “He was the third person attacked on the night – he went out because we heard noises, we heard damage to our car, and he lost his life.
“But people looked at the murder, not at the issues we’d had for months on end when nothing was being done.”
Asked if the way anti-social behaviour is dealt with has improved in the 17 years since her husband’s murder, Lady Newlove is definitive. “No,” she says. “[Some] people still dismiss anti-social behaviour as a bunch of kids on the corner causing issues when, in fact, you’ve got others who are scared stiff walking down streets because there’s gangs.
“My inbox is full of people who are desperate for help, because they’ve gone through everything they should have done and still they’re dismissed.”
Even away from urban centres, disputes stemming from anti-social behaviour have been increasingly flaring up between neighbours, with some officials believing that the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent spread of flexible working has intensified the risk of harassment and potential violence.
Deaths linked to such disputes include the 2013 murder of Bijan Ebrahimi, an Iranian refugee living in Bristol who was beaten to death by a neighbour after police ignored years of complaints over threats and racial abuse.
Six years later, 64-year-old Louise Lotz was bludgeoned to death by a neighbour in Welwyn Garden City following years of disputes that saw both women frequently report each other to the police.
And in 2021, devoted father Matthew Boorman was stabbed to death, in view of his three children, by a neighbour who had subjected his family to years of anti-social behaviour at their Gloucestershire home.
In the months leading up to the murder, neighbours had sought legal action against the killer, Can Arslan, because they felt unsafe in their own homes, but his campaign of harassment and abuse intensified.
The ASB Help charity says an unknown number of anti-social behaviour victims have also killed themselves after being failed by authorities.
“It’s so often dismissed as low level, but it’s the precursor to so much more,” says deputy CEO Charlotte Hamilton Kay.
“If you imagine tolerating something for an extended period of time, the behaviour itself may not change, but your tolerance level absolutely will.
“That’s where we see these conflicts coming in where people take matters into their own hands, whether that be to end their own life or to seek revenge. They think ‘well, no one’s going to help me, so I’m going to have to help myself’.”
She warns that anti-social behaviour can “become incredibly serious” when left to “fester”, but that victims experiencing problems with their neighbours are frequently passed between police, councils and housing associations without resolution.
One victim revealed to The Telegraph how she spent 29 years reporting her neighbours to the police for persistent noise, threats and harassment, but found herself being served with a legal order because of “fabricated” counter allegations.
Rachel*, who is a nurse with two children, had been pushing for action against the couple since she moved into her home in 1995, through decades of verbal abuse and vandalism.
“When my mum passed away, I didn’t even get a chance to mourn because the behaviour here was just terrible,” she says. “When you go to get help, nobody’s helping you.”
After a community protection notice was finally served on her neighbour last year, police officers arrived at Rachel’s door to issue her with the same type of notice because he had reported her, without evidence, for “being inconsiderate and making remarks”.
“I challenged it, and then I was taken from pillar to post, and then in the end it was rescinded,” she says. “It’s just just playing games with victims.”
From our town centres to the countryside, and throughout suburbia, police leaders acknowledge that anti-social behaviour is under-reported, and can act as a precursor to more serious crime, but believe police alone cannot tackle the issue.
The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners’ lead for local policing, Matthew Storey, says that even if Labour fulfils its promise to put 13,000 more police officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles, town rangers, community wardens and other local initiatives will still be needed.
“I don’t think you can rely on the police to police anti-social behaviour on their own – it is important to have different agencies and partners working together,” he says.
“It’s about really getting back to a level where we’ve got enough resources and saying ‘how can we all work together to make sure we make a difference?’.”
Deputy chief constable Andy Prophet, the national lead for anti-social behaviour, says: “We know it has the power to wreck people’s lives and therefore it is important to have a multi-agency approach.
“Victims should never suffer in silence, I would encourage anyone who is a victim to report incidents to us. Policing is one part of the solution but where it is not a policing matter, we will work with local authorities and other agencies.”
*Name changed to protect anonymity
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