Stephen McGinty: Why are small towns in Ayrshire descending into lawlessness?

WHERE tumbleweed would blow in a wild west town, in Auchinleck it is the crisp packets that billow in the breeze. A cluster of discarded plastic wrappers is skidding along the main street of the Ayrshire mining village where, to judge by this month's events, law-abiding citizens would be unwise to visit at high noon, never mind after sunset.

"Aye," says Craig Sairkie, who proclaims his love for his daughter and former girlfriend with a pair of striking red tattoos on his neck, "it's been a helluva time in Auchie."

This is to put it mildly. First there was the junior football match or, to be more accurate, the riot which saw mounted police take to a Scottish football pitch for the first time since the Old Firm game in 1980 that ushered in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act, that banned alcohol at all SFA games. Junior football is not covered by the act, perhaps as no-one envisioned the need one day for 30 Strathclyde Police officers supported by four colleagues on horseback to keep the peace at the tense derby between Cumnock Juniors and Auchinleck Talbot.

So antagonistic has the fan rivalry grown that more officers were deployed to the ground, where a total of 2,000 supporters gathered, than at all but one of the recent SPL matches that have taken place in Ayrshire. It was a prescient move as at the 80th minute, with Auchinleck winning two-nil, a vicious melee at the bottom corner of the ground spilled onto the pitch as fans wielded fists and Buckfast bottles. While Auchinleck supporters were corralled beside the clubhouse, police tried to escort Cumnock fans out but still there were running battles along Townhead street and into the square.

Then ten days later came the shooting. When, on Wednesday afternoon, word broke of the shooting of school pupils, the spectre of Dunblane arose. That the 11 unfortunate victims, five girls and six boys, were struck by air pellets was a cause of great relief, but one swiftly followed by the question of what is going on in a village where young residents riot, requiring to be corralled by horses, and others shoot up a school? Have the small towns, once supported by King Coal but now dying, descended into Scotland's answer to Tombstone?

Spectators didn't have to look far for evidence of the "outlaw" attitude, for when police arrived to arrest two suspects in the shooting, they were greeted not by applause, but abuse and hurled insults by local residents.

Is it now the "wild" west of Scotland? And, if so, what is the cause?

For Craig Sairkie, 40, life has certainly got tougher since he was a teenager. While he insists there has always been territorial antagonism between the villages, it has grown more severe in recent years. "I'm OK. I can go where I like," he says. "But the young ones, they can't go to Cumnock or they'll get a kicking, and vice versa."

At the gates of the local primary school a group of young mothers who preferred to keep their names to themselves - and their windows intact - were, however, keen to highlight the troubles they faced. "I don't dare go the shops at night now, cause of them (youths]. You're frightened and now they're shooting up the place. It's madness."

Another - "just call me Mary" - said she was now worried about "the wee man" who has started to emulate the swagger of older youths, "and he's only six". Pushing a pram back down the hill, one mother asked flatly: "Where's the polis?"

WHEN Chief Superintendent John Thomson's BlackBerry buzzed during a meeting of the Community Planning Board in Kilmarnock Town Hall on Wednesday afternoon, his heart sank. The divisional commander for Ayrshire had received an email detailing the airgun shooting at Auchinleck and more than most, he was aware of the potential for harm. In 2005 Thomson had been in charge of Easterhouse when Andrew Morton, a two-year-old boy, had been shot dead by an air gun pellet to the head. The culprit, Mark Bonini, had been taking random pot-shots at firefighters with a tragic consequence.

Immediately Superintendent Thomson travelled the 14 miles to the mining village to take personal charge of the scene, co-ordinate the hunt for suspects and the search for the weapon, which has yet to be found. By Thursday evening two suspects, a 15-year-old and an 18-year-old, had been arrested, while a third person, another 15-year-old boy, was being questioned in connection with the shooting. In his sparse office, over coffee and a mint viscount, Superintendent Thomson was anxious to reassure the public that despite the unfortunate recent events, "this is not the Wild West".

The facts are, as he is at pains to point out, reported crime in the area into which Auchinleck and the surrounding villages sit, has fallen. Over the past five years crimes of breach of the peace, common assault, offensive weapons, indecent assaults, vandalism, robbery and serious assaults have all dropped. The only rise between 2005 and 2010 have been in attempted murder, from 12 to 14, and those tagged as "other violence/indecency crimes", which have risen from 90 to 114.

Then there was the public consultation by East Ayrshire Council that revealed that in Ward 7 Ballochmyle, that includes Auchinleck, 87.5 per cent of the population believed it was a "good place to live" and 71.9 per cent said they had no fear of crime. The overall image is one of falling crime and rising detection rates.Since his arrival last October, Thomson has reorganised the staff, returning 30 officers from back-room activities to patrolling the streets and increasing the police's visibility at the weekends. "We've got more feet on the beat and less in their cars," he says. He is adamant that the two incidents that have brought so much attention to Auchinleck are unrelated, even though the shooting followed a few hours on from the co-ordinated arrests of two women and seven men in connection with the football violence. "The last few weeks have been disappointing but I'm satisfied that they were isolated incidents and not typical of the area."

To the outsider, mass brawling at a junior football game is unimaginable, but Thomson explains that this is to be unaware of the fierce loyalty and territoriality attached to mining villages by a certain section of youths and young adults. During times of economic hardship "there is a strengthened feeling of identity with your local team and for most people that healthy rivalry is not a bad thing, but when it spills over to what we saw that is a serious matter".

THE question is will the reduction in crime achieved during the years of plenty be reversed as Scotland enters a period of austerity? The dark villages of Scotland's rust belt have suffered during the "good" years enjoyed by other areas, so what will befall them as council budgets shrink even further? Jim Roberts, a local councillor for Ballochmyle, agrees that East Ayrshire has been hit hard by the demise of the deep mines and the fact that nothing has been put in their place. "This is an area of high unemployment and education has to be the way forward. The days of work on your doorstep is long gone and young people have to be encouraged again to get out and look for work. We have disaffected youths, just like in any other area, and we have to find a way to deal with this issue and I believe that despite the economic circumstances the council can continue to do so."

When asked if trouble will increase as the economic cuts begin to bite, Sue Palmer, author of 21st Century Boy and an expert in childhood development, said: "Well, it always has in the past, has it not?" Where others see problems, she has spotted an opportunity, but first she is clear about the problems.

"The major issue with lads is that we have substituted screen-based entertainment for the natural play of running about and climbing trees and running off high spirits. And, most importantly, learning to become part of their community, so that if boys are out in their community, they do get some degree of community values rubbing off on them. But that is falling and is something that everyone is concerned about.

"Today the only kids who now tend to be out on the streets are the very rough ones. In the past when you had a mixture of kids out there you got a degree of trading backwards and forwards, the kids who had a reasonable upbringing would have an effect on those who did not. Nowadays that is not happening, they are cooped up at home and the games they are playing involve a lot of violence and there is a fair bit of proof that these things are contributing to attention deficit and other developmental conditions."

However Palmer believes that the difficult times ahead provide an opportunity - "all the things young people need, apart from nutritious food, clothes and a roof over their heads, for proper healthy development are free. A recession should be the perfect time to get kids out to play."

Yet back on the streets of Auchinleck, the concern parents have is with whom their sons will associate. Outside the local shop is a teenager, face hidden with a hoodie, astride a BMX. When approached and asked about his views on the police he replies: "F*** the polis," then he pedals off, a wannabe desperado.