What are you going to do about it? That was the desperate plea to police from residents of a community hit by a spate of recent stabbings.

More than 70 people packed into a meeting at the weekend organised by MP Siobhain McDonagh to address concerns after three stabbings in four months in the same road in Pollards Hill.

Police have not charged anyone with the attacks.

Residents revealed their concerns about unconvicted knife crime, drug-dealing and burglaries in Pollards Hill at the Saturday meeting attended by Merton police and Moat housing association.

Mary Skyers, who has lived on the Pollards Hill Estate all her life, said: "My grandson was stabbed out the back by a gang. He had just left my house and he was going down the slope by the playground. He's 21.

"He was going to the shop. I just think that's too much in my opinion. Why is there not more police presence? If a young person is not safe going to the shops, what about older people?"

Her grandson Jordon Stuart was stabbed in the leg behind the New Horizon Centre at about 3pm on Tuesday, October 28. He has since recovered and is out of hospital.

Inspector Stuart Buchan, in charge of Mitcham policing, told more than 70 residents who attended the meeting that the chances of being a victim of a violent attack by a stranger in Mitcham were "very very slim" and that most of the victims and attackers were known to each other.

The meeting in the New Horizon Centre in South Lodge Avenue follows two more stabbings on the same street - one at the junction of Carisbrooke Road in June and another at the bus stop outside Pollards Hill Library last month.

Becky, another Pollards Hill Estate resident said: "My seven-year-old brother-in-law watched one of the druggies inject his arm.

"He witnessed the guy around the corner get stabbed. What I want to know and what the rest of us want to know is what you're going to do about it?"

Insp Buchan said he was sorry the boy had to witness the crimes, but could not assure residents any more resources would be injected into the area in light of the Met's £600m budget cuts.

He said: "I would like to have the money to put police on every street corner."

Merton's Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) were replaced with Neighbourhood Policing Teams (NPTs) as part of reforms to local policing in July 2013.

Four safer neighbourhood bases were slashed, with officers instead based out of Mitcham or Wimbledon stations with once PC and one PCSO attached permanently to each ward.

Each ward is overseen by one sergeant who oversees a maximum of two wards. Previously two PCs, three PCSOs and one sergeant were dedicated to each SNT team.

Superintendent David Palmer, Merton's deputy borough commander, who was also at the meeting, said: "I don't want to talk about safety issues because the reality has been for a number of them [stabbings], the people involved have been known to each other."

He added: "Most of them relate to other criminal activity that's going on but if you have got people getting stabbed on the street I know you are going to feel unsafe.

"The most obvious way for us to try to stop that are officer patrols which make you feel more secure.

"But the thing that prevents this happening in the long term is community intelligence which helps us understand who is doing it."

Wimbledon Times:

More than 70 residents attended the heated meeting on Saturday

He said he saw residents were concerned about lack of police in the area since the funding cuts, but pointed out that neighbourhood police officers were working longer shifts, so residents saw less of them but they were "on more often and cover a wider area."

Speaking after the meeting, Francis Sebunya, a City accountant who runs the Phoenix Residents' Association, said: "The general gist I get is that the police don't have any funding to address these issues.

"There have always been young guys hanging around. I think what's making it more prominent now is that they are getting more bold.

"They can rob the shop and get away with it as they know no-one will punish them."

Councillor Martin Whelton, who has represented the community for more than a decade, said residents believed some of the young men committing crime in the area were coming from Croydon and Streatham.

But Insp Buchan said he did not have any idea who the attackers were. He said: "I just don't know. It could be or it could be kids living on the estate. They keep themselves largely to themselves."

He added: "What we are aware of is that the attacks are by people known to each other. The chance of you being attacked or stabbed in Mitcham or Merton is very very slim.

"Recently we have had a spate of attacks but in general crime has been going down."

Maria Woahene, who grew up in Pollards Hill and came to the meeting because her mum still lives there, said she thought people needed to ask grassroots questions about why young people were getting involved in crime.

She said: "It's not just about police officers. We as a community, the schools, social services all need to take responsibility and we need to start asking what their budgets are, or what they're doing because these are people we're talking about - it's not the gangs and us.

"They have mothers, aunties, families. We need to start considering how we're going to rehabilitate rather than how police officers can get convictions and chuck people in prison."

Wimbledon Times:

MP Siobhain McDonagh is a fervent campaigner for 'more bobbies on the beat'

Keith Shipman, who runs Pollards Hill's Youth Centre, said a lot of work was being done to encourage young people to stop taking drugs and get back into work.

But he said that work relied on community intelligence.

He said: "We’ve got young people on the estate who are clearly not working in their 20s. Are they young people, or are they adults, and at what point do they become adults and do we expect them to start behaving like them?

"Young people in the youth centre don’t like those young people as much as we don’t like them but we have to work with them to try and stop them being involved in the crime they’re involved in and stop them taking drugs."

Naomi Martin, who has run the community centre for almost a decade, said after the meeting: "The stabbings and street dealings are things we haven't seen before.

"Once there's something people don't like in the neighbourhood they look to the police but there's a need to go back a bit further in the system.

"All the young people who are gang members are all people. They are all relatives of someone. The police are clearly really thinly stretched."

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