A dad-of-three whose car was deliberately set alight outside his Larkhall home feels his family are “under attack” because he complained about antisocial behaviour in their street.
Alex Mitchell moved from Leicester to Scotland seven years ago and settled in the South Lanarkshire town with his wife Natalie. They have three young daughters, Skylar five, Kady, three, and two-year-old Peyton.
The family was within their home in Glen Avenue on Monday, April 17, when a neighbour knocked on their front door to tell them Alex’s Ford Fiesta van was on fire.
“I was in bed and so were the girls, and I just heard ‘bang bang’ on the door,” said Alex “I thought that’s unusual and when I got to the door it was a neighbour who was shouting that my car was on fire.
“I had to run out and jump in my Mrs’ car and get that out the way in case that caught fire. And the neighbour is shouting I need to get the kids out. It was like a bloody war zone.
“If we hadn’t woken up then what could have happened?”
The 35-year-old has been left sickened by the incident and believes the reason he's been targeted is because of his complaints about antisocial behaviour.
“I’m being targeted but I don’t really know anyone here,” Alex continued. “We took a gamble and moved up to Scotland and were renting a place in Falkirk at first, then Natalie fell pregnant and we bought this house in 2017. After that things started going downhill.
"I complained to the council about the state of a house in our street, but it is privately let so they can't do much. We’ve had several rat infestations, and the garden looked like a scrapyard.
“We just wanted the place tidied up a bit, it’s horrendous.
“In January this year I was being wakened at silly o’clock with all these dogs barking.
“The dogs were waking me and my kids up. And it was happening at 10pm and 11pm.
“I went round and knocked on the door and there were two dogs and 15 puppies in the house.”
Alex says that shortly after, the people had gone had gone and he said "we’ve never seen them again since".
He hopes that others living in the community will come forward with information to help the police investigation into the fire.
“We caught it on CCTV and my brother is having a company enhance the images," he revealed. "I want whoever did this caught, you have to be wrong in the head to do stuff like that, especially when there are young kids in a house.
“We just feel like we’re being bullied and are under attack. We now have rapid response, so if we ring 999 then the nearest police officers will come straight over.
"But why are we living like this? We haven’t done anything to anyone and don’t deserve this. All we’ve done is reported things like any normal person would do if they were living with this.
“We’d already decided to move out this year, that was before the car had been set on fire.
“We just want to be able bring our kids up in peace.”
A spokesperson for Police Scotland said: “We received a report of a car on fire on Glen Avenue, Larkhall, around 11.55pm on Monday, 17 April, 2023. There were no reports of any injuries.
“The fire is being treated as wilful and enquiries are ongoing.”
Anyone with information on the incident is urged to contact police on 101 quoting incident number 4428 of April 17, or alternatively contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, which can be anonymously.
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