|
|
 |
| |
To cops, they are The Money Squad. They fight, get drunk and deal drugs
First round of court action that could ban 14 teenagers from Camden under mass Asbo
BANTER, horseplay and some chiding from a judge for talking in the back row: the presence of 14 teenagers in a courtroom on Thursday had the feel of a school trip from which the teachers had briefly slipped away.
When the chatter grew too loud an annoyed district judge, James Henderson QC, cleared the public gallery at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court and the adolescents trooped out, heads hung mockingly low.
The teenagers, according to police, were members of the notorious TMS, or The Money Squad, ranked as a gang on the Met Police’s database of organised crime. They were in court to face the largest mass-Asbo action ever attempted by Camden’s authorities.
If it succeeds, the 14 will be banned from Camden, forbidden to meet more than five of their listed friends and prohibited from “alarming, harassing or distressing” anyone in England and Wales for three years.
Camden Town’s community policing team have spent months gathering evidence against the youths. On Thursday they presented their case: that the teenagers in court were involved in fighting, assaults, drinking brandy and Coke in the street and a mass urination incident.
They were also said to be involved, to a greater or lesser degree, with what the authorities call Camden Town’s “aggressive cannabis market” around Camden High Street, Camden Lock and Kentish Town Road. It is the main focus of the council’s and police’s drive to clear up low-level crime in the borough.
PC Lee James said of one of the youths: “He associates with the gang in Camden Town. He likes to drink alcohol, likes to get drunk. We believe he is involved in the drug-dealing around Camden Town.” Earlier he had said: “I think all of them play the same role.”
Asbo hearings have become a tried and tested way of dealing with Camden’s problems. They allow hearsay evidence and require a lower level of proof than a criminal court. Other teenage “gangs” have already been banned from the area around Inverness Street that was once the centre of the cannabis market.
But in the waiting room outside the court, the confidence of the teenagers grew as it became clear the district judge was refusing to grant the interim orders police wanted. These would have banned the youths from Camden until their full hearings in June.
Only three of the 14 were granted in the end, allowing the rest of the group to resume their enjoyment of Camden’s nightscene until June, if they choose.
Asked for their comments, the teenagers were defiant. “Fuck da police – you can put ‘F star star star da police’. Put that,” said one of the youths, who at 16 cannot, like most of his co-accused, be named.
Asked if they were indeed the TMS, whose battles, real or imagined, with other groups of “c-town niggas” are widely recorded on the internet, their reaction was knowing laughter. “Who? What did you say? We never heard of no TMS.”
“You talk about gangs clash this, gangs that. You know nothing,” said one. It was also suggested that the New Journal should opt not to publish the details of the Asbo action. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
