Prositution problems in Gillespie Park

By Josh Spero

A CRACKDOWN on the prostitutes who have turned a local park into a den of crime has had no real effect, police admitted.

Police said their increased patrols in Gillespie Park have only moved the prostitutes into Hackney, where they came from in the first place. Drug addicts are also still using the park for using and supplying their drugs.

Sergeant Clare Messer, head of the Highbury West Safer Neighbourhoods team, said that their patrols had not solved the problem, just shifted it: “The Hackney crackdown has caused a displacement of prostitutes [to Gillespie Park]. Now it’s finished, they have returned to their old haunts.”

A Police Community Support Officer from Hackney said: “We just move them on from one place to another. It’s a vicious circle.”

Police patrols have not eradicated drug use from the park either. Sergeant Messer said there has been a “slight” drop in the number of users, but added: “There is still an amount of drug use that goes on.”

There are three times as many drug offences in Islington compared with the national average, according to government statistics.

The Ecology Centre refused to comment.

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