Mum's ordeal as thugs strike at car park

05 February 2010

A TERRIFIED mother was forced to barricade herself and her children in her car to protect them from yobs who had descended onto the Harold Hill shopping centre.

The woman, who is too scared to be named, locked herself in her car on Sunday January 24 outside the Sainsbury's store in Farnham Road, Harold Hill after the group of yobs hurled abuse at her and other motorists.

She said: "It was so bad that even the people pulling into the car park were too scared to come out of the car and were looking at me thinking the same thing."

The mother of two stopped off at the store to pick up some groceries after a family outing.

Her husband managed to brave his way past the thugs who were shouting, swearing, throwing each other into cars and abusing people walking past.

She said: "It is very intimidating and there is just no way that I would go down there on my own and I would definitely not take my kids because it was very upsetting for them.

"It was just horrendous that I had to stay in the car."

The thugs, who were about ten to 17 years old, then turned their attention to the Sainsbury's workers.

They ran in and out of the shop, then hurled racist abuse at the security guard who was trying to protect the customers and to stop them.

When the security guard brought down the shutters to shield customers from their behaviour, they pushed the shutters back up breaking it.

The woman said: "When I spoke to one of the staff that I had seen working that evening, she said it was a nightly occurrence.

"Sainsbury's staff should be commended, especially the security guard, I would not want to work under such threat and it is unlikely that the police will be of any help unless a member of staff is assaulted."

The woman has slammed the police and the council for doing little to tackle this regular occurrence in the area.

She said: "As a council tenant we pay CCTV charges to protect us when things like this happen but it seems that the police are not interested and what they did was criminal damage."

A Havering Police spokesman said: "This incident is not something that we received any calls about.

"We take anti social behaviour very seriously and there are enough police to make sure we can manage this behaviour."

A Sainsbury's spokesman said: "There is certainly a problem with a small number of children and youths who congregate outside some of the stores in the area and on occasion become aggressive and abusive.

"We protect our customers and colleagues as best we can through our security guards and CCTV, and we call the police to attend whenever there is a problem.

"We are liaising closely with the police on this issue to identify the best way to improve the situation for customers and colleagues.