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Britain's most dangerous street
BRISTOL CRIME & PUNISHMENT STAPLETON ROAD EASTON
IT'S Britain's most dangerous street - a moral cesspit where the pavements are heaving with killers, junkies, hookers and their pimps.
Bristol's Stapleton Road - known locally as Crackhead Alley - is a lawless hellhole infested by ferociously violent criminals and the lowest dregs of society.
The historic gateway to Bristol
Stapleton Road has a rich and varied history. Once a vibrant gateway community and the main route from Bristol to Gloucester, the road staged the siege of the old city wall by Cromwell’s infantry in the 1600s and in the 1700s experienced substantial growth around the coal mines supplying fuel to the growing brass, copper, glass, sugar, pottery and distilling industries. Stapleton Road had a turnpike gate erected to collect a toll from travellers to pay for repair to the roads. Considering this an unfair tax, the miners staged a rebellion and burned down the gates outside what is now the Three Blackbirds.
As the city grew around Stapleton Road, the market gardeners sold up and moved outwards so their land could be used for new development. Baptist Mills right on the edge of Stapleton Road is viewed by many as the birthplace of the industrial revolution and Abraham Darby renowned for his foundering of the Bristol Brass Works Company in 1702. The brass industry thrived in Bristol for 40 odd years until pollution of the River Avon became problematic and in the late eighteenth century manufacturers elsewhere in the country sought to break the monopolies established by Bristol.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, 70 percent of the local population were migrants who had moved to the area in search of work and a better standard of life. The River Frome was central to the growth of industry along Stapleton Road and in Baptist Mills. Galas and community festivals would often take place on the riverbanks. Established in 1830, the main Easton coalmine was at the core of the working community. To the annoyance of the Church of England, most spiritual practice was within non-conformist churches and a Wesleyan Chapel was erected in 1837 only to be demolished in 1971 for the construction of the M32 roundabout.
The Stapleton Road Railway Station was opened in 1863 and became a major station in the Bristol area with four platforms serving South Wales, Clifton and Avonmouth. Travel down Stapleton Road and Old Market was by horse drawn tram until the first bus made its journey on this route in 1938.
In the late 1880s, Stapleton Road was a bustling shopping centre reputed to be one of the most varied and interesting shopping thoroughfares in the city. Then in the twentieth century post war redevelopment plans for Easton fell short of expectations. City Council had stated that by 1980 Easton would be a self-contained village of 13,000 people with a revolutionary shopping precinct offering everything within a quarter mile radius.
Today, Stapleton Road is still a community of migrants and entrepreneurs making it the most interesting and undoubtedly diverse shopping street in the South West. Stapleton Road is undergoing much in the way of regeneration, the road to a promising future.
TODAY IT'S Britain's most dangerous street - a moral cesspit where the pavements are heaving with killers, junkies, hookers and their pimps.
Bristol's Stapleton Road - known locally as Crackhead Alley - is a lawless hellhole infested by ferociously violent criminals and the lowest dregs of society.
A section of the street, stretching no longer than a football pitch, has suffered...
THREE murders in two months on adjoining roads.
NEARLY ONE THOUSAND crimes in SEVEN months.
FOUR muggings, stabbings, burglaries or thefts EVERY DAY.
DRUG dealers and HOOKERS touting for trade every 100 yards.
Meanwhile the street's decent law-abiding residents cower behind their doors in fear, struggling to raise kids amid burnt buildings, smashed windows and pavements strewn with syringes and used condoms.
Among them is mother-of-two Jeanette Venner. She said: "Drug dealers and hooligans are here round the clock.
"I don't go out at night except maybe just to the corner of my road to the chippie, but no further. It's just too dangerous."
The road in Bristol's Easton district has suffered 915 crimes in seven months - that's SIX for every metre it stretches.
Compared with that statistic, notorious crime spots like Manchester's gun capital Moss Side and London's Brixton look as tame as a WI meeting. Snarling hoodies and hopeless junkies roam the streets carrying knives and weapons, mugging innocent victims for a phone card or a couple of quid.
One trader who asked not to be named because he feared the impact on his business said: "It's rough round here, really rough. The latest trend is having fighting dogs and I even saw one kid wearing body armour. They think crime is cool."
Walk down Stapleton Road and, if you are lucky enough not to be mugged, you will be offered crack cocaine practically every 100 yards.
Just off the road a notorious phone box sits on what is known locally as "Crack corner". Druggies call a number and have the drug ferried to them by teenagers on push bikes.
Toddlers are brought up surrounded by drugs and crime.
Charity worker Tariq Yousef said: "Kids of four or five grow up expecting prostitution, drugs and violence as the norm.
"We have people being mugged or stabbed for a phone or a couple of pounds. The other day one drug addict killed another for a few quid."
The headquarters of his charity was burgled five times in two months with thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment nicked.
Peering at Stapleton Road from behind his lace curtains, former insurance advisor Tony Yeldham says he does not leave his house at night.
"It's just not worth the risk going out there when you can get mugged and smacked over the head for the price of a couple of pints.
"They call Stapleton Road the Dixons of Bristol because it's where the burglars come to get their video players."
Jonathan Sodden was the victim of a brutal beating on his way home from work. Junkies battered him to within an inch of his life with a metal bar just to fund their next fix.
He said: "Three of them appeared and started kicking and punching me. One found a metal bar and they beat the living daylights out of me. I didn't think I was going to survive it."
Much of Stapleton Road's shocking plight began when police launched a blitz on drug gangs in Bristol's notorious St Paul's area. The gangs simply moved across the M32 motorway to Stapleton Road in Easton.
Just 50 metres from the road, up an embankment overlooking the motorway, People investigators found a junkies den littered with syringes - some plunged into tree trunks.
It was close to a path which snakes under a bridge and has been the scene of several rapes and sex attacks.
To fund their vile £1,000-a-day addiction, junkies rob kids and OAPs leaving the city with the highest rate of violent crime per person in the UK. Local councillor John Kiely said: "Stapleton Road and Easton in general is the drug supermarket of the South West of England.
"The M32 which cuts Stapleton Road in two is the front door. Dealers and users see it as somewhere they can come to buy and sell. I don't feel it is all doom and gloom but clearly it's not good enough and more needs to be done by the police and other authorities."
Mr Kiely also admitted the Stapleton Road area was notorious for prostitutes.
He said: "Just this week I saw women very obviously plying their trade at 10am right next to a school. That's just not acceptable."
Baldav Singh who owns DS Ratour General store said: "The prostitutes are right along the street day and night and police don't take any notice."
One law-abiding young mum told us: "The worst thing is that you get used to it. But I've got an eight-month-old son and want to move out. I don't want him growing up here because it's horrible."
Tariq, who works with Simi Chowdhry for the support charity Awaz Utaoh, said: "For a lot of these kids crime is cool. They don't mind being caught as it gives them kudos.
"Rubbish is dumped, windows broken, buildings are burnt out and they stay like that or years.
"We need real regeneration to make it attractive to people at night and force the criminals out, but there's just no pride in the place."
The area will be featured by TV investigator Donal MacIntyre in a new Channel Five series, Britain's Toughest Towns, this Wednesday.
But Chief Supt Mike Roe, Bristol police district commander, said: "The programme is not an accurate reflection of life in Bristol today.
"Police have worked hard to combat both street crime and the spread of crack cocaine, with not only our local partners, but national agencies and most importantly, the community. Robbery, burglary and vehicle crime are all at their lowest levels for several years.
"The battle is not won yet, but we are working hard in the fight."
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