Extreme deprivation, notorious gangs and streets awash with shotguns… how Birmingham became murder central
As the murder rate has soared by 70 per cent this year, many residents living in Birmingham are now too terrified to leave their homes
ON a busy Saturday afternoon in a Birmingham shopping centre, families, couples and friends are browsing the stores and tucking into their favourite fast food.
Suddenly there are shouts, then screams, as it becomes evident that two teenage boys are running amok, armed with guns. People flee in terror and someone calls the police.
There’s some relief later after the arrest of the two 13-year-olds, when it turns out the guns were imitation – but not enough to convince the local population that their city is safe.
Areas of Birmingham seem increasingly lawless, described by worried locals as a "war zone" - and there have been 33 victims of homicides in the city in this year alone.
Lynne Baird 61, who lives in the Yardley area, fears the city is becoming out of control after her son Daniel was stabbed to death outside a pub in Digbeth last July.
"He'd never been in that sort of trouble before," she tells Sun Online.
"He went out for a few drinks - and then he was killed.
"I didn't see him until he came back in his coffin nine weeks later. It was absolutely devastating and I still feel totally exhausted.
"It's had a devastating effect on our family. Every morning I wake up and wonder why I have to.
"Birmingham has become more violent over the last couple of years - there's hardly any police around now - and the ones we do have can't get to the crime scenes in time.
"Look at the incident a few days ago with the mother and the daughter who were killed, the police couldn't get there. I'm not blaming the police but if there's not enough of them they can't cope. The city is becoming lawless.
"I've felt I've had to take matters into my own hands which is why to stop knife crime. I've spoken to MPs and I am going to Parliament in a couple of weeks.
"We need bleed control kits installed in pubs and public places, they can save a life before the ambulance takes over.
A grim litany of recent violent crime includes a frail grandmother stabbed to death in a Small Heath property, a fresh-faced teenager killed in a drive-by shooting and a hard-working father gunned down outside a convenience store.
Over the bank holiday weekend Raneem Oudeh and her mum Khaola Saleem were knifed to death in a double murder.
Police have admitted the terrified pair 'repeatedly' called for help in the hours before their deaths and were on the phone to cops when the fatal attack began at around 12.30am on Monday.
Speaking to Sun Online about the bar call-out, Det Ch Sup Mark Payne said: "Tragically, we weren’t there in time to prevent the events."
Knife murders are a particular scourge in the West Midlands: they have doubled in three years and the number of cases of possessing a knife have jumped by almost 160 per cent to 1,800 last year.
Most of these were teenage boys.
A "loving" 16-year-old, Ozell Pemberton was fatally stabbed in the chest near McDonald’s in Sutton Coldfield, while popular university graduate Abdul Rahman, 24, was one of three murders which devastated the city in a single week in May.
He was shot in the chest at around 11pm at a street barbecue in Highgate and died later in hospital.
Just this month, footage emerged of a terrifying gun battle between two cars during a high-speed chase, with a passenger firing shots out of the window at the car in front.
Armed gang violence, drug deals and robberies are blighting something as simple as a family trip to a shopping centre.
Intimidating youths lurk in gangs, shopkeepers live in fear of violent robbery, and young men go armed with knives.
This perfect storm means the number of homicides - offences of murder, manslaughter and infanticide - in 2018 in Birmingham is set to total more than 50, representing an increase of 70 per cent in just two years.
Alison Cope, whose 18-year-old son Joshua Ribera was stabbed to death in a Birmingham nightclub four years ago, says that a fear of being stabbed is making more young people carry knives.
Alison says: "Friendships and communication are done with a comment, message or status and we are now seeing the devastating results.
"A lot of young people pick up knifes because they’re scared. Social media tells them there are stabbings nearly every day - and we’re filling them with the mentality that every one carries a knife.
"There have been cases as young as children of 11 taking a knife to school."
Kids are 'ready to kill'
These sentiments are echoed by former gang member Gwenton Sloley, 36, who says that young people are on the streets “ready to kill” and aren’t afraid of police stopping and searching them.
Weapon-carrying has become second nature to people caught up in the “street life” culture.
The city has a history of firearms production so the streets are awash with Peaky Blinders-style antique shotguns, popular because the bullets are untraceable.
Both criminals and police acknowledge they’ve lost control of the city.
One Birmingham woman has spoken out about the police being called to deal with an attempted murder at the house next door - but the slow response time of nearly an hour left her and her children terrified in their own home.
The West Midlands Police budget has been cut by £140 million since 2010 and lost 2,000 officers.
Its Chief Constable apologised last month for myriad failings.
Dave Thompson said budget cuts and fewer officers policing a "wider spread of crime" had left West Midlands Police at a point where it was not sustainable to tackle everything.
Terrifyingly they’re “writing off” burglaries and solving less than one in five break-ins.
“You only get a response from the police when there is an emergency - when shots are fired or there is a major crime scene,” says Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood.
Gangs plague pavements
In a residential street, Jackie Evans* needs to pop to the corner shop for milk but daren’t set foot outside her own front door.
A gang of 20 drug users congregate on the pavement, shouting, jeering, smoking cannabis and playing loud music from parked cars into the early hours of the morning.
The 30-year-old is no shrinking violet. As a nurse she’s used to dealing with difficult situations, but sadly Jackie is one of the increasing numbers of people falling victim to Birmingham’s shocking crime statistics.
She says: “They make disgusting comments, they steal from the shops, they smoke drugs outside my window and the fumes waft into my flat.
They leave rubbish piled up on my garden wall and smash bottles in the street so there’s glass everywhere.
“I don’t know what to do next. I can’t take this into my own hands because that would be dangerous, but dealers are selling drugs in broad daylight on a busy high street, sometimes to people I believe are underage.”
Another local woman says she has lived in her home for 60 years but, for the first time, doesn’t feel safe leaving the house.
A nervous pensioner in another part of the city says that after 48 years living on one estate, she wants to move because of her fear of crime.
It is not just residents who are suffering.
Shopkeepers and retailers complain of waning business. Traders at one shopping parade in Lozells say it’s like a ghost town after dark because people are afraid to go out at night.
Jack Dromey, MP for Birmingham Erdington, held a packed public meeting in his constituency where angry and frightened residents shared their experiences of crime and their concerns about cuts in the number of police officers.
West Midlands Police Statement
Chief Inspector Edward Foster, from the West Midlands Police force’s Homicide Unit, said: “We have seen an unprecedented number of murders in the first seven months of this year.
"Already this year we have seen 20 murder trials which have resulted in lengthy sentences.
"In the next six months we have 27 further murder trials scheduled for court.
"We have made no secret of the fact that our resources are stretched, but we are continuing our prevention and intervention activity as well as looking at measures to streamline and improve our services to the public.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dale, from the Organised Crime & Gangs Team, added: "We are working tirelessly to understand the reasons why young people carry weapons.
"But for those that feel it is okay to commit crime and carry weapons, our message is clear - it’s not safe for them, we will find them."
Andrew Mitchell, the MP for local Sutton Coldfield, said: "I support the excellent work our local Police are doing. This year they have received an increase of nearly £10 million so any suggestion of 'cuts' is deliberately misleading.
“In addition the West Midlands Police have reserves of £121.1 million (20 per cent of overall funding) which is much higher than other Forces and which has increased by £27 million since 2011.
“Finally HM Inspectorate of Constabulary has downgraded the West Midlands Police Force’s overall efficiency level so the professional opinion is that West Midlands Police are not as efficient in their use of taxpayers money as they should be.”
He’s about to attend another meeting to address spiralling violent crime at The Fort retail centre.
Staff there report lengthy delays or no-shows in response to 999 calls, with security officers being threatened by gangs.
County lines and 'cuckooing'
Gang culture is deeply embedded in the city. Twenty shootings from mid-2015 onwards were linked to the feud between the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew, who have been postcode rivals since the 1980s.
But drugs and violence aren’t restricted to the inner city - Birmingham drug gangs are muscling into rural towns and villages.
The increasingly infamous drugs network “county lines” in which gangs set up a dedicated phone number for people to order drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine are flourishing in this part of the country.
Police estimate there are 90 county lines running out of the West Midlands, more than half of them from Birmingham.
They also often take over the homes of vulnerable people, known as "cuckooing".
This is when drug dealers commandeer the home of a vulnerable individual – perhaps a drug addict, or someone with learning difficulties - and use it as a base for selling and manufacturing drugs.
Horrifically, last year, a gang targeted West Midlands busker Paul Pass, plied him with drugs in exchange for taking over his house, and then murdered him.
Police have identified a number of organised crime gangs based in the Birmingham area who have extended their supply into surrounding counties like Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and Shropshire.
They also exploit children by using them as drug mules.
Poverty, school exclusions and untreated mental health are stoking a problem made worse by the lack of resources to deal with them, he says.
Campaigner Gwenton Sloley argues that a combined effort is needed to tackle violent crime, including harsher sentencing for people carrying knives, and more preventative programmes run by youth offending teams.
“We need to stop excluding people from school so frequently. We need more apprenticeships and opportunities for young people and to stop cutting back on police.”
Birmingham’s crime is the consequence of it complex history according to Professor of Criminology Elizabeth Yardley, from Birmingham City University.
“It is hard to ignore the shadows of our past, with the old factory plots and disused warehouses,” she says.
“Over 75 per cent of people living in the Ladywood ward live in deprived neighbourhoods. Parents worry about gang violence, street crime and drugs. Nearly half of children in that area live in poverty.
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“Young people learn that their worth is increasingly contingent upon the things that they have. This has fuelled a selfish, individualistic sense of hedonism, in which some people are prepared to harm others to get the things they want.”
But this is no consolation for many residents like Jackie, who are terrified to cross step outside their front door in case they’re attacked.
MP Jack Dromey says: “The community is now paying a heavy price with rising crime and anti-social behaviour as police numbers fall. That tide must now be reversed. Safety, security, indeed life and limb, depend on it.
* name has been changed to protect her identity.