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.
Street gangs have been in Brent for a number of years, like many parts of London the current waves of streets gangs hold their history back in the 1980s when unemployment was rising alongside drug use and the introduction of crack cocaine. Some of the first gangs back in the 1980s were the Stonebridge Boys and the more organised "security firms" such as Strikeforce and the Panthers.
Throughout the 1990s much of the reported gang activity in Brent was attributed to small cliques of west Indian/Jamaican drug gangs, typically labelled as Yardies. There were a number of murders and shootouts between gangs such as the Kickoffhead Crew from Neasden and Wembley, Lock City Crew from Stonebridge and Harlesden and Much Love Crew from Harlesden. These crews dominated the headlines particularly in 1999-00 when numerous people were murdered in gang and drug related shootings across north west London.
Whilst these were taking all the media headlines a number of younger up and coming, more likely to be British born, local gangs were arising on various estates across south Brent from 1999 such as the Church Road Crew (now Church Road Soldiers), Suspects Crew (now USG or SG - Suspect Gang) and South Killie boys.
A lot of the original "Yardie" man got dropped, but in HMP or deported and most of todays gangs are more likely to have grown up in the local area estates and developed as gangs over the past 10 years or so.
Kilburn and Harlesden ends have long been notorious and reputed around London yet surprisingly didn’t encounter the riots as other such similar areas like Tottenham & Brixton did in the 1980s. Whilst rioters in Railton Road and Broadwater Farm gave terrorised Londoners a horrifying glimpse of what happens when public order breaks down the tension in other areas such as Kilburn and Harlesden never broke out to the same extent.
In the mid 80s the estates most likely to suffer future riots were revealed, amongst them was Stonebridge Park Estate. There was long a feeling that police were being heavy handed and those living in these areas were being mistreated. Following the death of a black male in police custody missiles were thrown at police as 400 demonstrators marched from Harlesden to Notting Hill and shops were looted in the Portobello Road area. Despite growing tensions and the anti-police slogans order was maintained.
There had been growing concern over the mistreatment of the black community in the area that was deemed as an endless demonstration of racist attitudes, behaviour and actions by police. The aforementioned male died in police custody after being arrested amid 999 calls about an armed offender. The innocent man, a carnival steward, was arrested and taken to Kensington police station where he collapsed on arrival.
Britain was a far more racist society then than today. Brent and the Met Police constantly blamed the crime of NW10 & NW6 on black youths and portrayed white and Asians as innocent victims. In trying to mitigate their own statement they emphasised that the majority of the black community were law abiding. Society at large was different back then and whilst local leaders condemned the comments as inflammatory Scotland Yard believed they had answered in a positive constructive way. Although at this time a gang of around 200 predominantly living in Stonebridge were actively committing crime – simply the Stonebridge Boys. By no means were they just black though.
It was almost as if these dangerous allegations were planned to ignite some reaction in the community. Dangerous for race relations and inflammatory yet monumentally stupid. Relations between police and the community were shaky at best; this was hardly a step in the right direction. We’ve always known that the Criminal Justice System is biased towards ethnic minorities, many today would be far happier knowing they can work the system a lot better than you could in those days. Even the media attention given today was far more than back then. In 1988, a 16 & 22 year old were stabbed to death in Nightingale Road Harlesden warranting a paragraph in news.
Crack was relatively new in the 1980s although cocaine use was growing and cannabis was still the drug of choice. A Donnie Brasco style case focused around Harlesden back in 1988 led to police thwarting a £2.7m cocaine gang. Dick (appropriately named undercover for the Met and another grass posing as a docker for customs) become involved in the drugs trafficking operation running out of Harlesden and Edgeware Road and needless to say assisted with the dismantling of this firm.
On first moving to Stonebridge – it may not have been London’s worst estate but it was shitty and dangerous, the shopping precinct was the local frontline, couldn’t even smell the fat from the chip shop cos of the ganja. As early as 1989 (and I know it wasn’t the beginning) there were searches for firearms in the flats, crack cocaine was just taking hold and boys as young as 13 were rumoured to be shottin on those streets. It was criminal and much of it was driven by drugs.
It wasn’t just the drug crews that were making it. Private security firms also were getting their share, armed with baseball bats, Dobermans and CS gas. “The Thugs of Acid House” guarding the parties. They again were part of a sinister new trend in which the ‘gangs’ cashed in on acid house parties and the thousands of youths that went to them. There were no regulations back then to control the activities of any company describing itself as a security firm. And it was these security firms who fronted the gangs in Harlesden and Kilburn. Protection rackets and drug dealing was the order of the times.
There were a number of firms running in Brent back in the late 1980s many operating behind the façade of respectable organisations. They were known for the gangland style intimidation and violence and would fight over business and territory; a lot of the guys were from the local gyms, boxing clubs and nightclubs, all big lads. It wasn’t just local, the firms would travel allover to different raves to cash in on the drugs as well as a couple of ton for the security.
Strikeforce were one of the big ones, they always dressed in black nylon jackets embossed with company name and logo. This lot were notorious for violence and plenty of police bared the brunt of Strikeforce. Rats were another dodgy one from Brixton, had Rottweilers instead of Dobermans. One of the Rats employees was stabbed to death outside Stonebridge Park Community Centre by another firm the Panthers (Harlesden based).
Panthers from Harlesden had a fearsome reputation and showed it against a firm from south London who had gained a contract for a reggae gig in NW10 ahead of the Panthers. The Jumbo Defence Force (JDF) had been warned of the Panthers reputation despite never hearing of them and had been warned not to search them at the event. One of the JDF people unknowingly searched a Panther resulting in a frenzied attack that lead to the JDF man having to get one of his legs amputated in hospital.
Through 1989-1990 it was very common for criminals in NW10, especially Stonebridge, to keep guard dogs to keep police at bay. One time Scotland Yard dog handlers accompanied detectives on the estate who were carrying out a murder investigation. Dealers were setting the dogs on police giving themselves time to get rid of evidence.
Britain was facing a new new drug crisis with crack becoming ever more present. Just after new year in 1990 70 rocks were found on the North Peckham estate, at the time considered a big haul. Like Peckham and Deptford, Harlesden was an area attracting people from allover to try the new drug.
That summer police tried to raid a Stonebridge crack dealing group. "The gang emerged from a shelter throwing bottles and chunks of masonry forcing the police to retreat, one officer had to be carried away badly injured". Stonebridge had a reputation as lawless.
Approaching the estate, situated between the railway line and North Circular road, you can see its isolation. On living there or walking around (back then before the redevelopment) its just a concrete labrynth of walkways, bridges and tunnels linking the blocks to the shops, schools and play areas. Its a perfect fortress and you cant venture there unknown as a police officer or outsider.
Now, in 1990 and to this day NW10 is not particularly affluent and yet man would be shottin and using mobile phone all day, nearly 20 years ago. Abandoned cars were allover as was glass the telephones were constantly used. Any police trying to come in the area could never do so undetected because the youths would be stood like senitels on the roofs and balconies of the blocks, even the police informers names were written on the walls.
Grasses do not survive, police confidence is non-existent.
The people werent bad, the criminals were victims as much as the law abiding. Victims of social deprivation. But still there is no denying that the criminals who did operate there were serious about their business and often made headlines.
Chicken Lennox used to preach racial ethics, media hypocrisy and police tactics:
''We got 16 pubs and no white landlords. We got shit schools with teachers who don't give a damn. We got uneducated kids going for jobs who get shown the door when they say where they come from. We got no black clubs, no black community centres, no place to go".
''We got young Rambo cops who insult our old people and taunt our kids and roust us morning, noon and night. We got courts that give long jail sentences for kids-stuff offences. We got newspapers and TV guys pay us a call to get all the colour in the junky kids and knife artists and never really listen to us. And we got big-time, white (government) drug dealers who dump their rubbish on our kids".
''Look around you. Up at Brent council they can't even organise the rubbish collection, and they charge us £500 in poll tax. Then they wonder why our kids throw bottles at cops.''
In 1991 a police officer was shot in another Harlesden/Kilburn drugs raid. It come in what was another of Britains biggest crack raids. He was hit by 7 bullets from a Colt .32 automatic handgun. Fourteen people were arrested and £500,000 worth of crack, firearms and ammunition was seized. A big contrast to the 70 rocks found in Peckham a year or so earlier.
The predicted Crack Boom never took off as quickly as expected but as the early 1990s progressed violence among competing criminals over territory was assumed. London accounts for 80% of crack seizures in the UK. The three biggest 'cartels' in London in the early 1990s were said to be Brixton, Harlesden and Stoke Newington.
One suggestion for the large number of black crack-dealers is because of the lack of black police officers which make undercover operations more difficult, and most markets are on estates that are already difficult to police, such as South Kilburn, Stonebridge and Church End.
In 1992, Sam Lewis of Kilburn, who had shot at the police officer in the previous years crack raid was jailed for 17 years. Ironically the day before the trial another policeman was seriously wounded and a man killed after a domestic row led to a 5 hour siege in Harlesden. The event happened on Nicoll Road.
The following month five police officers were injured in another disturbance on the Stonebridge estate, one suffered a fractured skull. Again another case of heavy handed racist policing pursued when they tried to detain an innocent man on suspicion of handling stolen goods. "A lot of people began to gather in the court (Clark court) when the officers tried to arrest him, then they called for back up". He was innocent, there were about 50 elderly people, mothers and children surrounding the two officers and when backup arrived they were met with an attack of bricks and bottles.
Despite the little dramatisation it all happened pretty quickly but it was such incidents that dominated the press and ruined community confidence and relations with police, it didnt reflect the true "Heart of Harlesden".
