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Axel Landin discusses the issue with shopkeeper Dilip Patel |
'BITING BACK AT MOSQUITO'
Youth council claims victory as Mosquito alarm falls silent
TEENAGE politicians claimed a victory last night (Wednesday) after their confrontation with a shopkeeper saw Camden’s first-known Mosquito alarm torn down.
Three members of the youth council hunted down the controversial device after they discovered one was being used to disperse youths at an off-licence in Regent’s Park.
The Mosquito works by emitting an unpleasant, high-pitched frequency that only sensitive ears – typically of those of people aged under 25 – can hear.
While Camden Council has a hardline ban on the use of the devices on its own property, nobody at the Town Hall was aware that one had been used privately, leaving it up to their teenage counterparts to take proactive action.
Since its launch in 2006 as a device to frighten off groups of loitering youths, the Mosquito has divided communities, with supporters arguing it is a peaceful way of dispersing intimidating teenagers and opponents, including human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabati, calling it discriminatory.
The alarm was found outside an off-licence in Robert Street late ?yesterday afternoon.
The youth councillors confronted shopkeeper Dilip Patel and talked him into taking it down.
Youth council leader Eleanor Bley Griffiths, 16, said: “We can say we have achieved something. We have made a difference.”
Joint leader Axel Landin, 17, said: “Young people don’t always have somewhere to go but we need to tackle that and not resort to this reactionary and discriminatory measure.
It only alienates people and makes the matter worse.”
But they also had sympathy for Mr Patel, who told them he felt he had to put up the alarm after customers were scared away by young people congregating outside his shop.
He insisted he only switched on the alarm when there were six or more youths outside his shop.
“I’m fed up complaining to the local council and the police force [about] kids hanging around outside the shop in groups of 20 and 30,” he said. “How would you feel going into a shop when there are 20 kids outside?”
When Mr Landin suggested there were other ways of dealing with it, he replied: “Tell me how? The customers complain they can’t get in the shop. If I call the police they say: ‘Are they harming you?’ I say: ‘No, but they should be dispersed’.”
Mr Landin described Mr Patel’s situation as “a genuine problem” but warned the Mosquito alarm was not the answer.
“It’s a narrow-minded view of young people,” he said.
“If it was 60 businessmen in suits with briefcases hanging around outside lots of other people would find them intimidating but I bet he wouldn’t switch on the alarm.”
Ward Councillor Theo Blackwell said: “It’s sad someone has to take those extreme measures to protect themselves.”
But he said it was not a surprise Mr Patel had taken the law into his own hands after the ruling Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition cut youth services.
“It’s a sad reflection on the lack of youth provision in the area that something like that has to happen,” he added.
Lib Dem crime chief Councillor James King defended the borough’s services for young people and said he didn’t support the use of Mosquito alarms.
He said: “We have all sorts of options for young people involved in anti-social behaviour. It’s a tenuous link to say it’s the council’s fault – Mosquitoes are fundamentally discriminatory.” |
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Your comments:
Discriminatory is an emotive word that simple means aimed at a specific group. If its kids that are lurking at the shop, then its kids that action should be aimed at!
Groups of kids can be disruptive and intimidating , not to mention just plain irritating. Too many antisocial people have 'rights' these days...........i'm on your side, Mr Patel.....shame you have to put up with all that dross !
D. Prothero
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