CCTV plea for danger underpass

Published on Thursday 24 April 2008 10:25

COMMUNITY leaders and police have called for security cameras to be fitted on a network of underpasses following the latest knifepoint attack.

Yesterday the Evening News reported how a gang of muggers held a knife to the throat of a pregnant mother in front of her two young children in a robbery at the underpass between Calder Road and Longstone Road.

It is one of four major underpasses under Calder Road, including those to Sighthill Shopping Centre, Broomhouse Road and Wester Hailes Road, leading to Stevenson College.

Officers investigating the attack on the 28-year-old mum today revealed it is the fifth incident on the network in ten weeks.

The attack, on Saturday, is also the second attack on a pregnant woman at the underpass in 18 months. Police have joined community leaders in calling for improved security.

Chief investigating officer Dc Jim Menzies said: "These underpasses are easy targets because they are not covered by CCTV, which makes them difficult to police and difficult to locate offenders. They are always going to be vulnerable areas but CCTV would definitely be a bonus."

However, requests for mobile security cameras are currently tied up in red tape.

Fellow investigating officer Dc Heather Powell said: "There is a financial issue surrounding the siting of these cameras. Basically, they have to be paid for but like everything else you have to knock on several different doors to find the money.

"If money wasn't a consideration I would close them all and put in bridges across Calder Road. Pedestrian crossings would be unfeasible as it is a major road."

The most recent attacks on the underpass network were on a 14-year-old boy and 69-year-old great-grandmother.

Two further attacks were reported on two women aged 28 and 54 at the Broomhouse Road underpass.

Betty Milton, acting chairwoman of Sighthill, Broomhouse and Parkhead Community Council, has campaigned for five years to get cameras installed on the underpasses. She said: "I have to use the underpasses to get to community council meetings, the library, the medical centre . . . but as a pensioner I just don't feel safe."

In 2003, the Burdiehouse Road underpasses in the south of the city were closed off and replaced by pedestrian crossings at a cost of 180,000 after becoming a "no-go area" for local residents.

Two years later police and council representatives compiled the Calder Road Underpass System Crime Prevention Report, which found that the underpasses fitted all the criteria used to identify crime hotspots and concluded they should be closed in the long term.

Sighthill councillor Eric Milligan said: "If the police believe there is an opportunity to safeguard the lives of the local community through improved security or alternative crossings their opinion should demur any consideration of costs."

I still get flashbacks of the mugging

MARY HALL'S world has become a lot smaller since she was attacked at the Longstone Road underpass ten weeks ago.

The diminutive great grandmother, 69, vowed never to return to the underpass after fending off a female bag snatcher on February 12.

To date she has stuck to her vow, meaning the north side of the road, including her former GP's surgery and Sighthill Shopping Centre, is closed off to her.

She said: "I've had to change my doctor to a surgery at my side of Calder Road because I can't bring myself to go near the underpass.

"I still get flashbacks of the mugging and my arm still hurts. I wake up sometimes and I can still feel the girl tugging at my arm."

A DECADE OF FEAR

April 23 2008: 28-year-old pregnant woman mugged at knifepoint. Longstone Road underpass.

March 5 2008: 28-year-old woman assaulted and robbed. Broomhouse Road underpass.

February 21 2008: 54-year-old woman assaulted and robbed. Broomhouse Road underpass.

February 22 2008: 14-year-old boy assaulted and robbed. Longstone Road Underpass.

February 12 2008: 69-year-old great gran fends off mugger. Longstone Road underpass.

September 28 2007: 38-year-old woman robbed. Wester Hailes Road underpass.

March 12 2007: 17-year-old stabbed. Sighthill Shopping Centre underpass.

November 10 2006: Pregnant woman mugged. Longstone Road underpass.

January 19 2006: Drug trafficker caught dealing in Longstone Road underpass.

August 2 2005: Calls for Sighthill underpass clean-up after murder in Sighthill Community Garden.

July 23 2005: 16-year-old girl attacked. Longstone Road underpass.

July 19 2005: 86-year-old disabled woman robbed. Broomhouse Road underpass.

January 9 2004: 81-year-old mugged. Broomhouse Road underpass.

April 8 2002: 19-year-old stabbed by gang of nine. Shopping Centre underpass.

November 16 2000: Skinhead attacks five pensioners in 11 days. Wester Hailes Road underpass.

March 1 1997: Church minister mugged. Unspecified underpass.