Nothing positive

Published: 19 August, 2010

• I WAS surprised while on holiday to receive a text from your reporter asking me for my response to “stabbings in Gospel Oak” about which I knew nothing. 

On my return I found the New Journal up to its old tricks, portraying Gospel Oak as a scary battleground for rival gangs, complete with an inflammatory quote from a former ward councillor and the obligatory reference to residents “afraid to leave their homes”. 

Of course, as Mick Farrant pointed out last week, the two incidents involving knives were nowhere near Gospel Oak and in a different ward altogether, but why let facts get in the way of a good story? 

Nothing about the exemplary policing of Gospel Oak ward by its Safer Neighbourhood team, or the work put in by the team and the community to bring off a highly successful and trouble-free Queen’s Crescent street festival.
Chris Fagg
Chair Gospel Oak Safer Neighbourhood Panel

The Editor writes: We apologise for the error in our location of the incidents. There was and never has been any intention to malign the neighbourhood.