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Above: Dr Rowan Williams is asked to pray for Wayne Rooney’s recovery before the World Cup
Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu and Father Nicholas Wheeler, with Dr Williams
Dr Williams bumps into writer Beryl Bainbridge |
CLERGY BLAST ASBOS
‘Brutal nature has developed in area’ says priest
THE Archbishop of Canterbury heard a cry for help on Monday morning as priests warned that Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and CCTV has failed to improve Camden Town.
Dr Rowan Williams heard how the area – seen on the outside as a popular tourist attraction – had been devastated by youth violence, street drinking and drug abuse.
He was led around by Camden Town priest Father Nicholas Wheeler, stopping at one point at an understaffed homeless day centre in Greenland Street.
Father Nicholas said: “Money is spent on CCTV but it is not an imaginative or effective solution to the problems facing Camden Town. The Spectrum Day Centre is understaffed. The staff there do a dedicated and fantastic job but the centre is under-resourced.
“Why is that I have had to deal with five different managers? It’s because people get exhausted and they move on. There is nowhere for homeless people just to ‘be’. You and I can go to Pret A Manger but these people can’t. They are under pressure to always be on the way somewhere.”
He criticised the use of Asbos – obtained at an electric pace by the Labour administration before its electoral defeat earlier this month.
Father Nicholas added: “The easy solution is to remove people from society, to exclude them, but that is not always the best way forward. We should be seeing how we can include them. These people may have committed a crime or done something that has caused pain to others.
“But if you actually talk to them and find out about them, you will find some bruised people. The answer is not just to remove them – we need more energy put into a way to include them. We need to look at prevention rather than reactive measures.”
Dr Williams was joined by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu. The two most senior figures in the Church of England were helping to launch a new report titled Faithful Cities. Seen as a follow-up to a similar report published by the church in 1984 to criticise aspects of Thatcherism, the new Church of England file laments the gap between rich and poor and a worrying rise in racism. Dr Sentamu said the implementation of a “living wage”, rather than a minimum pay rate.
He added: “Why is it that young people in Britain, the fourth largest economy in the world, are the most depressed in Europe?” Father Nicholas said he was shocked at the matter-of-fact acceptance that had greeted the stabbing of teenager Mahir Osman in Camden High Street in January.
He said: “Apart from a couple of flowers on the High Street, it struck me how life went on. In other towns, when somebody so young is killed the whole town stops. But in Camden Town it seemed that everything carried on as normal. That shows the brutal nature that has developed in the area. What the Archbishop of Canterbury was saying and what I was saying is that the Church has been here for long time, it knows the community and it can really make a difference.”
Father Nicholas said he hoped the “new political landscape” at the Town Hall following Labour’s defeat would provide a new opportunity to discuss “how to really make Camden safer.”
Defending Labour’s record, group spokesman Councillor Theo Blackwell said: “Camden has invested more on drug treatment programmes than any other borough. Our use of Asbos went hand in hand with investment in services.”
The churchmen also visited the spot in Camden Town where Mahir, 18, was murdered.
Dr Williams told the New Journal: “It was interesting to see Camden Town, there is clearly a lot going on but there is a lot of tensions too. The Church can be an honest broker at this point. The Church has a lot of spaces in the community that it wants to share and it can bring people together when they need that most.”
During a jovial exchange in which one market trader told them to “pray for Wayne Rooney”, the Archbishops bought pineapples from a street stall in Inverness Street Market. |
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