Reality Check.....

Just thought I'd post this to allow many residents who take an interest in ASB and other matters, often just what it involves to get successful outcomes is "getting rid" of prolem neighbours and others who harass and distress whole communities. It's incredibly simplistic to look at ASB and other incidents and then point the finger at housing officers etc as "letting" things happen, the truth is without residents willing to stand up, and give evidence where appropriate, things will continue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8285451.stm

The case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled daughter after a decade of taunts and abuse by youths at their home in Leicestershire, left many people shocked at how neighbours can treat each other.

Some Bolton residents, though, have shown the scourge of anti-social behaviour can be successfully tackled - but only after a lot of hard work and even some personal danger.

It began for Sharon Hodgkinson as it might for any of us.

Large groups of rowdy teenagers had gathered outside her home; she closed the curtains and hoped they would go away.

But they did not and instead their numbers swelled. Often there were thirty or forty young people, kicking footballs, shouting, drinking, taking drugs, playing music and abusing passers-by.

It often went on until the early hours of the morning.

"It was like sleep deprivation," remembers Sharon.

Her children could not go out to play. Whenever she set foot out of the door, she would be shouted at.

Their car alarm was regularly set off. If she asked the troublemakers to go elsewhere, they would tell her that this was their street, and it was she who should go.

Life on Shackleton Grove in Bolton became miserable.

Frustratingly slow

So Sharon, a mother of six, contacted the anti-social behaviour team at Bolton At Home, the Housing Association responsible for council houses in the town.

Fortunately for her they listened, and provided a sympathetic ear 24 hours a day.

But dealing with anti-social behaviour is time-consuming and frustratingly slow, as Sharon was to discover.

First she was given a diary to record what happened, when it happened, and how she felt about it.

"One of the questions that always cropped up when I was writing how I felt was: 'Why do the police seemingly do nothing?'" Sharon said.

"It left me with a feeling of being very vulnerable. You'd call the police, they'd come, they'd have words with them and perhaps move a group of youths off the street.

"But you'd know full well that as soon as the police were gone, they'd soon be back."

She was also given a video camera and started to record particular local residents who seemed to be causing most of the trouble.


The problem was that the more she did, the more of a target she became. She started to get death threats, windows of both her house and her car were smashed.

Sharon showed me one of the videos she filmed. It