Despite the claims that London is ‘lawless’, I’ll be honest: I broadly feel safe in the city I’m lucky enough to call home. As a born and raised Londoner, it has changed beyond recognition in just the 25 years I’ve lived here – and looking even further back, the stories my parents tell of how crime-ridden the capital used to be in the 80s and 90s feel incredibly distant.
That was until my housemate was mugged at knifepoint outside our front door in a quiet residential street in south London. Just after 9pm on a sunny summer’s evening, he was approached by two people in ski masks who flashed knives at him and asking him if he wanted to “do it the hard way or the easy way”. They took the contents of his bag – including his passport, house keys and headphones – he only managed to keep his phone in his pocket because when asked by the muggers where it was, he panicked and said he didn’t have one. For some reason, they believed this.
