Inside Britain’s Most Raided Building: Crack, Gangs, and the War for Stapleton Road HT

 

 

20 years ago it was where people pop down to buy an eighth of cannabis or something like that. Now it’s crack cocaine. >> I sold this patch, you sold that patch. There’s a conflict. It’s natural really to happen, isn’t it? >> Teenagers recovering. He was stabbed in whistle. >> It’s a bizarre crime.

>> Cold today. You couldn’t find anything. A man serious injuries aren’t shot in the hospital. It >> is a violent place to live. It was a violent place to live. >> Thousands of crack addicts. A 72% rise in violent crime. Drug gangs wreaking havoc. Bristol is one of Britain’s toughest towns. [Applause] The city of Bristol.

On the surface, it’s the very picture of British middle class respectability. But beneath that surface is another town that is being devastated by extreme poverty, crack addiction, and waring gangs. >> Like rich or poor down there. You ever got it or you have a no really in between. >> The Home Office recognizes that Bristol has one of the worst crack cocaine problems in Britain.

>> Drugs has become everyday part of normal life and it’s not going to go away overnight. In this episode, we examine why parts of Bristol have been devastated by crack cocaine. >> If you’re dealing, you can make thousands and thousands of pounds. >> And we find out how crack has turned this road into one of the most dangerous in the country.

Within like 10 minutes of walking down this road, you get off at about 10:14 time. With good transport links to all parts of the country and large areas of coastline, Bristol is an ideal location for importing and dealing crack cocaine. Crack is a refined version of powder cocaine. It is extremely addictive and gives users a feeling of intense confidence and euphoria, making it the drug of choice for many addicts.

But the highs only last a matter of seconds, and it leaves the addict craving for more. The area hit hardest by the effects of crack in Bristol is St. Paul’s, 2 mi southwest of the city center. In May 2003, a national newspaper reported that there are 12 a half thousand addicts in St. Paul’s. 20 years ago it was where people popped down to buy an eighth of cannabis or something like that.

Now and and for the last few years it’s been crack cocaine. >> St. Paul’s has been decided as the place where it lives. So we are the home of where a class drugs live. >> The large number of users in St. Paul’s means that there are huge profits to be made from dealing. >> If you’re dealing, you can make thousands and thousands of pounds.

You can sort your life right out. Freddy, a 28-year-old dealer from St. Paul’s, has been selling crack for 10 years. >> Every hour, you could probably easily smoke a 16th of an ounce of crack. >> And how much will that cost? >> Uh 16th of crack might cost you about, I don’t know, £75 and you can smoke all day.

>> So you’re looking at a couple of grand a day. >> Yeah, you can get through that no problem. And that’s that’s that’s standard. You can do that. If you go out and you earn the money, you can spend it and smoke it. So, you know, you can do it. I’ve seen and it brings The thing with crack is it’s like such an addictive drug.

It brings down the biggest man. The biggest man could be up on crack, right? And you could have all the money. Yeah. You can lose that. Every penny goes, I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen people with the biggest cars, biggest houses, everything. Bam. Gone. Finish. >> Dealers like Freddy can make up to £800 a day.

These large sums of money mean that control over the lucrative drugdeing turf is highly prized. >> I sold this patch, you sold that patch. There’s a conflict. Do you see what I mean? That’s to be expected. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And um it’s natural really for [ __ ] to happen, isn’t it? You know, you get a lot of jealous people or like you know, you might have someone who who you are stepping on his feet.

Yeah. You might have, let’s say, a bit of this whatever and you want to sell it and you’re you’re selling it to his people. He might get well off. You’re you’re stopping him from feeding his kids. As far as he’s concerned, he might come and blow you away. >> In Bristol, the rise in crack use has been paralleled by a 72% increase in violent crime.

In 2004, Bristol had the highest level of violent crimes per person in Britain. The city’s crack problems hit the national headlines in October 2004. Tonight, 22-year-old Donna Small, who is from Horfield, remains in a critical condition in French Hospital. The attack on the car she was in left her with a bullet in her brain.

Her 21-year-old friend is still critically ill after an operation to remove a bullet from near her eye. Two families are in shock over a crime that has stunned the city and left two young innocent women fighting for their lives. Bristol’s crack epidemic started in the 1990s. The city’s crack trade was entirely in the hands of a local street gang known as the Aggie crew.

By the late 1990s, they were making millions of pounds a year, but this success was their undoing. >> There was a very large police operation which um ended up with a big swoop in 1998 and eventually six members of the gang were uh put away for a total of 40 years. And at the time, I think the estimated street value of the drugs they were caught sort of red-handed with was around £1 million.

>> After members of the Aggie crew, including the leader, Clinton Wilson were sent to prison, the highly profitable dealing territory of St. Paul’s was taken over by Jamaican yardies. By February 2001, police estimated that there were over 200 yardies operating in St. Paul’s. As fast as the police were taking these guys off the streets, that void was being filled by somebody new.

He was on a plane from Kingston. >> In January 2003, key members of the Aggie crew were released from prison, and they were determined to reclaim their turf. >> They didn’t like the fact that other gangs had taken over their space, if you like. They toled themselves up, did a quick tour of St. calls showed their weapons to a few people and said, “We’re back.

” >> What followed was two weeks of gang warfare between the Aggie crew and the yardies. Much of this violence went unreported, but we tracked down two former gang members who saw what happened. >> I’ve seen people get shot, stabbed, stabbed in the head, shot in the back. >> Loads been loads of gang back in the back recently.

During this time, a yard was kneecapped, an Aggie was shot in the shoulder, and a number of street dealers were kidnapped. >> Stabbings, murders, and gun shootings going on in the areas very bad. >> The violence was threatening to spill out onto the streets, and the police were concerned that innocent people would be caught up in the turf war.

Aan and Somerset police took action to avert the threat of further violence. Later tonight, there will be armed officers on the streets of St. Paul’s Eastern and around Lawrence Hill in response to what the police have called covert intelligence that there could be this incident between two drugs gangs.

>> It’s the first time that armed police have been openly patrolling on the streets of inner city Bristol and there’s got to be quite an intense threat for that to happen. Although the armed police stayed on the streets for 4 weeks, the rivalry between the Aggies and the Yardis remains and there is an everpresent threat of gang violence on the streets of St. Paul’s.

>> It is a violent place to live. It is a violent place to live. Now >> in 2003, the police took to the streets of St. Paul’s to reduce the threat of violence. But on those same streets in 1980, their presence caused a riot. We were not there in sufficient strength to contain the situation.

They were causing damage not only to our vehicles but to other vehicles. They were certainly causing some damage to houses and so forth. And they weren’t throwing at anyone else. They were throwing at the police. The riots were sparked off when the police raided the Black and White Cafe, a notorious drug down on the Groner Road in the heart of St. Paul’s.

[Music] the cafe down the road. I think they could have handled that better and then it wouldn’t have erupted like it did. >> Well, they start flinging buckles, stones, anything they could get. >> It was pretty wild scenes. >> It was wild scene. Yes, it was. >> What was the mood of the people who were inside the cafe? They were furious.

I mean, they were wild. Really wild. >> The cafe reopened after the riots and continued to do business throughout the 1990s. >> Black and White Cafe in in St. Paul is fairly notorious in Bristol and and farther a field. It was a known place for drug dealers to frequent and also it was a natural magnet for the addicts.

Um now it it wouldn’t be fair to say that everything took place right inside the black and white cafe, but if you drew a circle around it, um there’d be pretty much what was going on was happening in that circle. The amount of drug dealing going on inside the cafe once again brought it to the attention of the authorities.

And by 2003, it was Britain’s most raided building. >> It had been raided well over 150 times and and many many many arrests had been made either inside the cafe or just outside. >> Police have carried out raids on the place and seized hard drugs like crack cocaine. And three years ago, a man was shot dead in his car outside the cafe.

>> With hundreds of drugrelated crimes being committed in and around the premises, the police were finally able to use new antisocial behavior legislation to get it closed down in June 2004. >> Black and White was open for years and the situation was people use the place to sell.

Inevitably, what happens happens. It gets shut down. Do you know what I mean? The closure of the black and white cafe was heralded as a major success in the war against crack cocaine in St. Paul’s. >> I think it’s a fantastic result for the local community of St. Paul’s. What this has been about is reducing crime and disorder in the area of St. Paul’s.

So the area will become known as a place of cultural diversity rather than the drug supermarket of the southwest. It’s an excellent result. But some residents feel the closure of the cafe has just moved the problem on. >> Now that the black and white has been closed down, isn’t this problem going to shift somewhere else? >> It didn’t take long for the dealers to find another part of Bristol to ply their trade.

>> Because of the police measures to tackle drug dealing and problems in St. pause. There’s a a natural tendency for these problems to disperse a bit wider and and some of these problems have moved across the M32 motorway into Eastern Stapleton Road. >> In part two, how crack has made Stapleton Road the most dangerous street in Bristol.

A lot of drug as well. There is a lot of crime going on road. and we find out how the crack epidemic has affected its residents. >> We’ve had stabbings on the corner. We’ve had three murders up on the road. Every day to be honest, some sort of problems that we’re dealing with. Some inner city areas of Bristol have been devastated by a crack cocaine epidemic.

The dealers are making vast sums of money from the thousands of crack addicts on the streets. The Black and White Cafe was a known place to buy and sell crack, but with its closure in June 2004, the problems have spread to other parts of Bristol. The worst hit is Eastston. It’s overpop populated and extremely deprived. One road in particular has become the new center of the drugs trade.

>> Was a lot in St. Paul. It still is. slowly moved up into um Stapleton Road. It’s got really bad. It’s got really bad. >> Stapleton Road has been devastated by the crack cocaine epidemic. After three murders in just 2 months in 2004, the press dubbed Stapleton Road the deadliest street in the West.

>> Got robberies everywhere. You got breakins, got shoplifterss. >> The problem was so bad that the Home Office defined Stapleton Road as one of the five worst crime areas in the whole country. a lot of drug dealing as well. There is a lot of crime going on Sleeping Road. >> It’s like Sleeping Road.

It’s just if you go down, it’s just a junky paradise. >> Its notoriety attracted addicts from all over the country. A typical example of the problems faced on Stapleton Road is former addict Jason. Hooked on crack for 10 years, he moved from Liverpool to Bristol because it was easier and cheaper to buy the drug.

I think Bristol’s getting really really bad with the crack cocaine. Within like 10 minutes of walking down this road, you get off with about 104 times. >> Crack addicts require a constant supply of money to fund their habit. It’s estimated that crack addicts in Bristol are responsible for 22 million pounds worth of crime every year.

>> Once I started using the crack cocaine, it was like it was I needed 10 times as much money. I needed to do 10 times as much crime, you know, and I just lost all morals. Anything anyone I cared about it, it didn’t matter, you know. It didn’t matter if I hurt them, you know. I just wanted that fix.

I’ I’d wake up, I’d be really ill, you know. I’d have to go out at the shop soon as they opened. I’d rob to uh I’d sell me stuff, get the drugs, and I’d do that through the day, through day them when the shop shut at night. I’d rob anything, anyone. >> The high level of crime caused the local police to focus their attention on Stapleton Road.

Over a 7-month period, they recorded the crimes committed on a 150 m stretch of the road. The results were shocking. There were 915 crimes. That’s over four crimes a day on a stretch of road just longer than a football pitch. Muggings were one of the most frequent crimes recorded. The network of subways in and around Stapleton Road have become an ideal location for the addicts to commit the crime.

There have been a number of demonstrations this year by residents sick of being frightened to walk around in their own community. This underpass under the M32 motorway has seen in the last 6 weeks to many in fact in this area street crime is up by 77%. >> There’s a lot of in Bristol. This little roundabout in particular is nicknamed mugger central.

>> In 2003, resident Jonathan Soden became yet another statistic. >> I just finished work. It’s about 8:00 in the evening just as I was coming through the subway and one of them pulled his bike up next to me and pulled it across in front of me, spitting in my face. I managed to hold him at bay with one arm and he’s um then after that there’s just three of the three of them kicking me and punching me and then one of them found some sort of a um metal bar lying on the ground and then beat the living daylights out of me. But I did think that I wasn’t going to survive it. Obviously, the scars and things heal and stuff, but you don’t ever really get rid of that thought. >> Burglary is another easy way for crack addicts to fund their addiction. In Bristol, there were more than 3,000 burglaries in one 3-month period in

2003. That’s more than 35 a day. >> It was you could leave the key in a door like years ago, you know, years ago when I was growing up, but um not now. It’s um it’s pretty bad and it’s getting worse. The high number of break-ins has led to some local residents taking extra security measures.

Having been burgled twice in less than a year, Bob Evans decided to install his own closed circuit television inside his house. >> It’s a small camera that I bought. It’s off the internet. Put it in the corner of the room in the living room downstairs. >> Within a week of installing the equipment, Bob was burgled again.

As soon as I got home from work and I went upstairs to change and seen that obviously there had been a burger or somebody had been in there cuz all the chest of drawers both chest drawers have been disturbed and things thrown about all over the place and I checked the CCT and um friend the evidence on the um on the tape >> and even a badly broken arm didn’t stop the burglar from breaking into Bob’s home.

He’d obviously been upstairs first and filled his bag up with um some of my possessions, passport, driving license. Two weeks later, I sent this to the Evening Post and they put this on the front page 2 days later and they had numerous phone calls and all given the same name and the same address of this guy.

>> After Bob’s footage was published, the man was arrested and charged with the break-in. >> What can you say? He’s low life. These have to be put away for a long time, kept off the streets, so he can’t do it again. Residents and traders in Easton were unhappy by the amount of crimes being committed on their road and decided to fight back by setting up community action groups.

>> We’ve had stabbings on the corner. We’ve had three murders up on the road every day. To be honest, some sort of problems that we’re dealing with. >> TK helps run Awaz Utah, an organization set up to help Stapleton Road residents who’ve been victims of crime. But his organization has not proved popular with the local gangs and dealers.

>> We’ve been victimized to stop our services because we are affecting their trade. Our project manager, she’s been shot, acid thrown on the cars. The organization’s been held hostage by a gang of South Asian youths. It’s a bizarre crime. You come to Stoton Road, you couldn’t find anything. The scale of the problem has also left the authorities struggling to control the situation.

The local transport police have seen a marked increase in the amount of crack related crime on the trains as both drug dealers and addicts use the rail network to move in and out of the area. The favorite haunt for addicts and dealers has become the train station situated in the heart of Stapleton Road. they’ll go into the shadier, darker corners to try and to try and score or to to have their fix.

Um, and those movements themselves tend to draw attention to them. So, a lot of our our calls are from concerned members of staff or public about the actual behavior of an individual. Uh, and that’s where we have a lot of our successes in detecting users. >> We spent a day with PCs Pravin Taylor and Dave Eively.

Their first job was to check out a nearby tunnel often used by addicts. >> Pretty hidden at the end of the day. The only people who are going to come down here is us or uh >> or them. >> Driver on one Charlie 4 has apprehended two. >> Aan and Somerset police have caught two men after they were suspected of smoking crack on the station platform.

>> Whiskey m 31. All [Music] right, mate. >> Well, you’re going to give me a ticket for running on the train tracks then, are you? >> I need to take some details off you. All right, I’ve got a warrant out for my arrest. >> With signs of drug use and outstanding warrant, they arrest the youth. >> And you better get the camera.

>> Don’t be stupid. Come on, Sean. >> Come over here. Get that camera off of me now. She kept sort of making reference to the fact that people in the town always called her a smackhead. I think you could see by the the mood of the group there that they were sort of not not happy. >> Back at the station, Inspector Dalby shows us a few weeks worth of drugs and weapons found on the dealers and addicts.

>> Flip knives. Looks like a knuckle duster. Oh, handcuffs. It’s going to be very nasty if someone attacks you with one of those. Like the drugs are going to be in this bag here. Ah, it’s an interesting bomb. Jesus can bush white powder single spliff. And there’s several of these multiple multiple bags.

That’s how that’s how problematical it is and how how widespread it is in Bristol. Bristol’s crack cocaine epidemic has devastated the areas of St. Paul’s and Eastston. There are vicious turf wars between rival drugdeing gangs who are fighting to control the lucrative crack market.

And addicts are flooding in to take advantage of the cheap drugs, bringing with them huge amounts of street crime. All ensuring that Bristol will continue to be one of Britain’s toughest towns. >> It’s like a war zone out there. Young people don’t realize it. [Music]