Old people terrorised into turning their homes into fortresses

JEREMY PAXMAN:
The afternoon draws to an end. As Langworthy prepares for the night, fear of crime dominates residents' thoughts. It affects people as young as Gene who is only three. He's picked up by his mum from his nursery. This is the last time he'll be allowed on the streets today. From now on, he'll be kept indoors.

GENE'S MOTHER:
Watch you don't fall on that wood. When we come home, apart from going to the park, he has to play in the house or in the back yard, which is really small.

PAXMAN:
The reason Gene's a prisoner in his own home is simple - crime. In September, 75 offences were committed on these streets, a majority, it's believed, by gangs of young boys.

GENE'S MOTHER:
It restricts what he can do. He can ride his bike, but how far can he pedal up a yard? It would be nice for him to pedal completely round the park, but it's not safe. He could encounter gangs. He could have his bike taken. It's happened to other children.

PAXMAN:
In Salford as a whole, robbery and burglary are more than double the national average. The police on Langworthy say most of the problems on the estates are committed by a handful of boys.

SERGEANT MAXIME SABOOR:
It appear that these same youngsters are responsible for a lot of the crime in the area. There's nothing more intimidating than a group of youths. They might be innocent and just stood in a corner, but that can be intimidating.

PAXMAN:
Getting to know all the children is a key part of the police strategy.

SABOOR:
Don't break my window, you. Show me your hands. What have you been up to?

UNNAMED BOY:
Fetching a bike back.

PAXMAN:
As night falls, fear of crime increases, especially among the elderly. The Shepherds have lived in this house all their married life. It now takes seven locks to make them feel secure.

GLADYS SHEPHERD:
We lock the doors and we feel safer.

LEN SHEPHERD:
On occasion, you will get maybe half a dozen coming from somewhere, and we have seen them down at the bottom of the street. They're there, menacing. You wonder what they are going to get up to.

GLADYS SHEPHERD:
I feel very nervous. I won't go out at night at all. We just live our lives mainly in here, don't we?

PAXMAN:
Gladys goes up to bed, but Len sleeps downstairs. This is another security measure.

LEN SHEPHERD:
At night-time, it's the first line of defence, all this. If anybody comes in, I'm here, protecting Gladys and David. I've often said to Gladys, "What am I going to do when I'm 100? Will I still be doing this?"

PAXMAN:
A few streets away from the Shepherds, the Herrings are also locking themselves in for the night. They have every reason to worry. The house next door was torched.

JOHN HERRING:
This house and the one next door, when they were empty, the lads got in there and they torched the house and the flames came through the roof. This is why we've got all this damp and damage to the house.

PAXMAN:
We first met John at his doctor's surgery last month, where he had gone for a regular check-up. He was deeply upset by a recent mugging.

HERRING:
(footage dated October 2000)
Two school lads, only 14, mugged and knocked her down. Took her bag, with £80 in it. They broke her hip.

DOCTOR:
Oh, dear. I'm sorry.

PAXMAN:
Crime makes the everyday life of the Herrings a misery. Next door still has no roof following the arson attack. The dampness seeps through the walls into their house. Every night, Doreen has to shift the coal needed for the next day to the other side of the cellar.

DOREEN HERRING:
It's very hard work, but never mind. That's what some people have to do.

JOHN HERRING:
It's so ridiculous that we've got to put up with this sort of thing just because you've got a crowd of children who are not controllable and the parents couldn't care less. They seem to kick them out on the street and say, "Go and get lost."

DOREEN HERRING:
We go down very fast, but we come up slower. It gets your stomach going.

PAXMAN:
Not only do the Herrings feel unsafe in their own house, but matters get much worse the moment they step outside their front door.

DOREEN HERRING:
They'll say to you, "Go on, you old woman," and all the rest of it. You have to walk away. Then next time, you're going past the shop, and they'll say, "Will you take this money, missus? Go and get me a can." These are boys that are about seven, so you just walk away and again you take more abuse. The trouble with it all is you think to yourself, I've refused these children, yes. Will they come and make me pay? By throwing your windows in, getting on the roof, coming in your back yard. You really are frightened.

PAXMAN:
The police are responding to that fear. This is the last night of a high-profile operation designed to tackle street crime. According to the police it's been a success.

SABOOR:
Since June to the figures that we looked at two weeks ago, crime has been reduced by 20% in this area, which is a fantastic reduction, certainly for us and certainly for the community.

PAXMAN:
This good news is tempered by the fact that on average two crimes are committed here every day. A few weeks ago Doreen was close to becoming a crime statistic herself when she was threatened by a teenager.

DOREEN HERRING:
He was going to put his hands around me. I said, "Clear off!" I slapped his hands away. I was terrified. Deep down I'm thinking to myself he might still get hold of me. But luckily I kept talking and shouting and going in a rage. He said, you know, "Eff off," and ran away.

REPORTER:
Did you report that to the police?

DOREEN HERRING:
No, because I was in such a state. I'm sorry about that now. I hope it never happens to anybody else. I'm really sorry, but I was in such a state, I couldn't wait.

SABOOR:
If they don't report crime, we don't know what's going on and we can't address it. A lot of the problems are children on the streets who are committing crime because they're bored. They know that when they are in large groups they are intimidating and when they are doing damage to vehicles and people's houses, it's not fun and it's not acceptable. We are coming down on them hard, because people have to live round here, and they don't want to live like this.

PAXMAN:
The police's message of a 20% reduction in crime hasn't got through to the public. The heavy policing is alienating younger people even more.

UNNAMED BOY 2:
We're judged off everybody else. They see the empty houses round here, and think we must be the cause of people moving out.

SHOUTING AT PASSING POLICE VEHICLE

PAXMAN:
A passing police car catches their attention.

UNNAMED BOY 3:
All they do is pull us up on the streets, take our names, when we've done nowt wrong. At one time there was a group of lads over there with a gun. They pulled about five of us and started saying it was us.

PAXMAN:
They claim there's nothing to do at night except hang round the streets, then the police move them on.

UNNAMED BOY 2:
They move us on to loads of corners. Then they move us on again. That's when all the people complain about us making noise.

UNNAMED BOY 4:
No matter what corner we go to, we get moved. There's no point.

UNNAMED BOY 2:
We finish school and then there's nothing to look forward to. So we come out with our mates.

PAXMAN:
These kids are bored at night, but during the day, truancy here is four times the national average. If Langworthy is going to recover, getting the kids to stay in school is a top priority. One man determined to do that is Stuart Williams, a youth worker. He's just won some of Langworthy's regeneration money to reopen this community centre for young people.

STUART WILLIAMS:
It's so easy to slip into not going to school and doing whatever they do during the day. It's up to people like myself to intervene and perhaps give them a chance to do something else.

WILLIAMS:
He's dead interested, Steven, isn't he? He knows what's going on.

PAXMAN:
Steven is now 13. His visits to school are sporadic, but he doesn't have a criminal record.

WILLIAMS:
Four of your mates? We'll get four of you playing rugby as well. He's playing rugby now, Steven, aren't you Steve?

STEVEN:
Yeah.

WILLIAMS:
He's in the rugby team. He's starting to play rugby.

PAXMAN:
We first filmed Steven last spring. He'd begun to realise that bunking off school would affect his future.

REPORTER:
What do you think your life will be like in ten years' time? What will you be doing?

STEVEN:
A cleaning job.

REPORTER:
You want to do that?

STEVEN:
No. I want to be a fireman. But the way I'm going at school, I'm not going to reach it.

PAXMAN:
Seven months on, Steven is still missing a lot of school.

WILLIAMS:
What's school like at the moment?

STEVEN:
A bit hard, but I'll cope.

WILLIAMS:
What's hard about it?

STEVEN:
It's just stressful sometimes.

WILLIAMS:
In what way? Getting through the work or getting through the day?

STEVEN:
Getting through the day.

WILLIAMS:
Expand on that. Struggling with the lessons? Yeah. There's no point if you're struggling and you think, "I can't do this, I'll just go home."

PAXMAN:
Stuart has thought of a plan. If Steven goes to school, he'll get him a place with the Youth Fire Brigade.

WILLIAMS:
You need to prove to them that you want to put something else in. It all starts with the school thing. You can't really join the Fire Service without getting a few GCSEs. You need to knuckle down at school or get yourself involved with school. I know it's not going to be easy, but we'll do it over three months. Is that OK with you?

STEVEN:
Yeah.

PAXMAN:
Steven now has to prove himself. Keeping children in school is top of the Government's initiatives. They have just announced a £43-million crackdown. Steven's future is in his own hands. Will he stay in school? The night rolls on. Everyone's life here is affected by crime. Are the right things being done to give them all a crime-free future?