Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
Following interviews with young victims of gang violence in Greenwich in the 2003 documentary “Gang War”, Met Police Commander Steve Roberts was quoted as saying:
“I don’t at the moment see a need for a gang strategy in London, I don’t think the problem is serious enough to start engaging with groups as groups…and i'll take some convincing of that yet” (Gang War, 2003).
He was involved in the Met Police Youth Strategy 2003-2008 which set out aims for reducing youth crime and victimisation and he generally leads for the Met Police on the development of new partnership approaches to preventing young people becoming involved in crime – but yet he was unwilling to acknowledge gangs or youth groups and preventing the development of such groups was not considered in the strategy.
In late 2007, a year before the strategy expired, Greenwich police launched its own gang’s squad in response to numerous violent clashes between local gangs and following a rising number of teenage murders of which a large proportion were gang related. The reality is most of the current gangs in Greenwich were about well before the “Gang War” documentary in 2003.
Ferrier Boys, Brook, Ferrier and Middle Park Avenue Estates, SE3/SE9
Original Greenside Bangers (T-Block), Thamesmead SE28
Woolwich Boys & YWB, Plumstead and Woolwich SE18
-Barnfield Boys
-Boyard Crew
-Maryon Estate
-Nightingale Crew
-P-Block (Glyndon Estate)
-Woolwich Common Estate
Cherry Bloods, Cherry Orchard, Springfield Estates SE7
Greenwich, also known as “Green Borough”, is part of the ‘Five Borough Alliance’ (a gang unit covering Croydon, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark). Many of the gangs that are present in Greenwich have been in the area since the 1990s. For many years the largest and most established of the Greenwich gangs was the Woolwich Boys, a gang which developed through conflict with the Ghetto Boys from neighbouring Lewisham. Other gangs that developed in areas around Woolwich were the Ferrier Boys from Kidbrooke and T-Block from Thamesmead which are now more commonly known as Original Block Gang. The newer and less established of Green Borough gangs are the Cherry Young Bloods, although in their own right have also been around over several years.
Woolwich Boys, Original Block Gang, Ferrier (which since the deterioration of the estate and planned demolition has spread into other estates across SE3/SE9) and Cherry are the four main gang allegiances in Greenwich, that said a number of smaller gangs have been in existence in recent years that have either died out through conflict, become part of larger alliances, exist on lower levels or are yet to establish themselves. Those gangs have included Abbey Wood Boys, Mad Souljahs, Gilbourne Boys, Eltham Boys and National Front.
The media rarely acknowledged gangs in Greenwich up until 2003, possibly after they gained national exposure on the “Gang War” documentary that appeared on Channel 4 dispatches (available at www.ricenpeas.com). There were reports about violent incidents involving the Woolwich Boys and other gangs from around 2000-01 but they were never reported as gang related including one whereby Woolwich Boys were stabbed following a Sahra Axmad concert at Stratford Rex in 2000. From 2006 onwards the local rag (Newshopper & Bexley Times) began picking up gang related incidents with more frequency starting with mischief night in October when a number of conflicts kicked off between local gangs including T-Block and Racist Attack (from neighbouring Bexley borough) and Woolwich Boys (Somali batch) with Abbey Wood Boys and Mad Souljaz. Later in that year (December 2006) interim ASBOs for 6 of the boroughs gang members were handed out.
‘Greenwich Erupts in Gang Wars – 2007’
A number of rivalries in Greenwich flared up more frequently and violently in 2007. Clashes predominantly between Woolwich Boys and Cherry Young Bloods, Woolwich Boys versus T-Block, and Ferrier Boys versus Cherry saw numerous youths stabbed and seriously injured across the borough. By the end of the year a dedicated gangs unit was being prepared for the borough.
