Selina Scott daylight robbery shows London has become a crime-ridden cesspit and is less safe than one of the world's most notorious cities, expert warns
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The robbery and assault of veteran broadcaster Selina Scott by an organised gang shows London has become a 'crime-ridden cesspit', a policing expert said today.
Ex-New Scotland Yard detective Peter Bleksley said the force was now so stretched in the West End that private security companies were being deployed to help.
He condemned the 'epidemic of crime' in London from pickpocketing to violence and fare evasion to robbery, adding that it was 'driving people away' from the capital.
Mr Bleksley, known for Channel 4 reality show Hunted, told MailOnline that the 'once iconic' city was 'absolutely plagued' by crime and urged visitors to avoid getting their phones out in public and leave any expensive watches or handbags at home.
He recently visited Krakow, Milan, Rome and Naples - known for its Camorra mafia and criminal underworld - and felt far safer in all four cities compared to London.
Meanwhile Conservative politicians today called on Labour Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan to do more to address growing concerns about the spiralling crime rates in the capital.
They spoke out after 74-year-old former ITN News At Ten anchor Ms Scott revealed she was viciously attacked and robbed in broad daylight in Central London last week.
The stalwart of British TV since the 1980s told The Mail On Sunday how the terrifying assault - which took place on busy Piccadilly - left her 'shattered and traumatised'.
Ms Scott was leaving a branch of Waterstones last Tuesday afternoon when she was struck on the back of her right knee, leaving her feeling as if she had been 'stabbed'.
She was set upon by a gang who attempted to grab her backpack. Fighting back, she kept hold of the bag – but one of the thieves unzipped it and took her purse before running off. Ms Scott lost her bank cards, driving licence and cash in the robbery.
Mr Bleksley said: 'If you come out of Waterstone's and you turn left, you're just a short distance from the Ritz, the iconic Ritz. If you come out of Waterstone's on Piccadilly and turn right, it's a short walk to Leicester Square.
'And yet all of this part of London is absolutely plagued by pickpocketing, robbery and violence. It's driving people away, affecting the economy, changing the landscape of once beautiful place for people to visit, enjoy the history, the sights, the shopping.
'People are being driven away in their droves after an iconic, eloquent, elegant woman, who used to be in our lounges almost every day of the week, like so many tens of thousands of others, becomes a victim of crime in that part of once-iconic London.'
The incident raises damning questions about the Metropolitan Police's failure to robustly tackle such crimes amid a staggering 23.5 per cent increase in similar thefts in the last year alone.
Ms Scott said she felt 'furious' at the lack of a police presence to deter or capture the criminals, despite being told by officers that such muggings were 'rife'.
Asked about the police response, Mr Bleksley said: 'Every day of the week the Metropolitan Police fail thousands of victims. They do not get a prompt, professional and thorough investigation into their crime.
'We live in an increasingly lawless criminal cesspit in London. And by and large the responsibility for that rests with the Met who, I know, will cry 'austerity, austerity, we don't have the numbers'. And yes, policing is a numbers game.
'But how many are stuck behind desks, are suspended, are in non-public facing views, because of the Met's failings in recruitment vetting, training and standards and culture? They can't go 'austerity, austerity' every time they get embarrassed in the media.'
Mr Bleksley also issued advice to anyone visiting London, warning them to take extra care and consider what they have on them.
He said: 'If you've worked really hard in your life and you've been able to buy yourself that watch that you always wanted, then listen to my words very carefully.
'Do not wear it into the West End of London. I know the police did a highly publicised operation a few months ago to tackle this, but they're not doing it all the time.'
He continued: 'There's utter lawlessness in that part of London – morning, noon and night. If you are going to go there, which I will be doing today, then for goodness sake have your wits about you.
'Do not pull your phone out in public, do not wear an expensive watch or carry an expensive handbag, because, sadly, you are quite likely to be relieved of it by unscrupulous and violent criminals. They're in charge. The Metropolitan Police isn't.'
Asked what could do done to solve the crime epidemic, Mr Bleksley added: 'Patrol the streets. Treat criminals as the enemy. Stop using the daft language that so many of their senior officers talk about.
'Trust and confidence, it's in the gutter, and the only way you're ever going to pull it out of there is by doing what the public wants, and that is patrolling the streets. Being a presence out there. Arresting criminals, charging them and sending them off to court.'
He said crime in London was worse than it had ever been in his living memory, and this was particularly impacting the night-time economy.
Mr Bleksley compared the situation to Rome where he had been ten days ago for a city break with his wife and two friends. He said: 'Everywhere we went we saw police officers.
'Italy has a population that's about 10million less than the UK and whilst the UK has got about 148,000 police officers, of all descriptions, in all different forces, Italy has 300,000 police officers thereabouts and I'm talking about Carabinieri, Police Financial, Police Locale, state police and such like.'
He claimed Rome has a lower crime rate than London, adding: 'In that regard, it is a numbers game.'
Mr Bleksley also said: 'I would say that London is appalling in comparison to our very recent experiences.
'Likewise with other cities I've been to in the last year or so – Krakow in Poland, goodness me, you can walk down the street with your wallet hanging out your pocket and it will still be there when you get back to your hotel.
'I felt so much safer in Milan recently. Naples even, I felt safer in Naples. Now of course as an ex-cop I'm always on my guard, I don't wave my phone about needlessly and irresponsibly, and my radar is still on red alert wherever I go travelling,
'I just can't avoid that, I just can't help that. But my recent experiences of Krakow, Naples, Milan and Rome all made me feel a lot safer than it did in London.'
In the Crime Index 2025 from popular crowdsourced database Numbeo, London is ranked 103rd out of 380 major cities for crime.
London is below Naples in 54th, but above Milan in 128th and Rome in 153rd - and well above Krakow in 342nd.
Latest data UK Government data from September 2024 showed there are 148,886 officers in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales.
Conservative politicians have also come forward to criticise the levels of crime in London under the Labour Mayor.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told MailOnline: 'What happened to Selina Scott is horrifying but sadly, the public have come to expect these sorts of cases in Sadiq Khan's lawless London.
'Criminal gangs are acting with impunity while the Met Police are warning they will have to lose 1,700 officers due to the Labour Government's inadequate police funding settlement. Labour are presiding over a breakdown of law and order.
'We need a zero tolerance crackdown where every single crime is investigated and prosecuted where a perpetrator can be found. This includes using facial recognition from CCTV cameras to catch suspects.
'Barely over 5 per cent of all crimes in London are prosecuted which is totally unacceptable. Mayor Sadiq Khan, who oversees the police in London, needs to spend less time on politically correct virtue signalling and more time catching criminals, in an urgent zero tolerance crackdown.'
And Susan Hall, Conservative group leader at City Hall, told MailOnline: 'Our thoughts are with Selina and we hope she is able to make a full recovery.
'This horrific experience not only demonstrates the brazenness of London's criminals under this Mayor, it also highlights how badly Khan has let public safety and spaces degrade.
'This comes before his reckless police cuts truly start to bite - with 3,300 Met Police staff at risk - which will only exacerbate this horrendous situation.
'He needs to pull his head out of the sand and get a grip on this before more people are harmed or worse.'
Ms Scott, who spends most of her time on her 200-acre estate in North Yorkshire, said she was attacked by 'around seven or eight' smartly dressed men and women, who appeared to be of East Asian origin.
She told The Mail on Sunday, Ms Scott said: 'I still feel shattered after what has happened. I can't believe it happened to me.
'I'm mentally resilient and physically fit, but if they can attack me in such a brazen way they can attack anyone. You're left feeling not just traumatised but stupid that you have somehow let it happen.
'I'm also furious about the lack of police on our streets. No wonder the gang who set about me have a sense of impunity – they can do anything they want because they know no one will stop them.'
She did not require medical attention but suffered severe bruising to her leg in the assault. 'I am now only too relieved it wasn't a knife they used,' she added.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'While we understand that the victim in this case was frustrated that she couldn't see any police officers on the street at the time of the incident, we would like to reassure her and the wider public that a significant number of officers patrol the West End every day to target offenders, including those carrying out thefts and robberies.
'They patrol not just in uniform on foot, but also in plain clothes and in vehicles to have the best opportunity to identify and apprehend suspects.
'We would be happy to talk to the victim in this case to better understand her concerns.'
Speaking about what the force is doing in relation to violent crime, a Met spokeswoman added: 'Tackling violent crime in all its forms is a key priority and we are determined to crack down on robberies, which can so often have a significant and traumatic impact on victims.
'Across London, both uniform and plain clothes officers proactively patrol robbery hotspots to identify, apprehend and deter potential offenders. We also have dedicated teams that target repeat offenders.
'Incidents of neighbourhood crime, which includes offences such as robbery, theft from a person and shoplifting, have reduced by 18.6 per cent compared to the same period last year. Over the past 15 months, we have also increased our arrests per month by 10 per cent.
'Our focus on tackling these crimes will continue throughout the summer, using ward-level data and intelligence to really make a difference in key areas.'
And a spokeswoman for Sir Sadiq told MailOnline: 'The previous government chronically underfunded the Met, making cuts to policing in London that were in real terms equivalent to more than £1.1billion.
'These drastic cuts resulted in the loss of thousands of officer posts and the closure of dozens of police buildings across the city as the Met tried to make ends meet.
'Since coming to office in 2016, Sadiq has done everything in his power to support our police.
'This year alone he is providing £1.16billion investment for the Met to protect neighbourhood policing in our communities, secure 935 frontline police officer posts and significantly reduce the level of cuts the Met had been planning. This is double the amount provided by his predecessor as Mayor.
'The Met will publish a new Estates Strategy this summer, setting out its plans for providing the right amount and quality of buildings needed to deliver a new Met for London. The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime will scrutinise this carefully.
'However, the Mayor is under no illusions that there could be further difficult decisions to make and will continue to work with the new government to ensure the Met gets the sustainable funding it needs to help us to build a safer London for everyone.'
The Mayor's team added that City Hall was working closely with the Met Police to 'tackle the scourge of phone thefts in London' amid his concerns that it is 'simply too easy and profitable for criminals to repurpose and sell on stolen phones'.
Nearly 40 per cent of such thefts are happening in the West End and Westminster - where police patrols and plain-clothed operations have been increased, the spokesman said.
London reminds me of lawless New York when I worked there in the 1990s. Why won't Sadiq Khan emulate mayor Bloomberg's zero tolerance crackdown?
By Selina Scott
Stepping out of Waterstones bookstore on Piccadilly in Central London on Tuesday afternoon, I felt a sudden blow to the back of my right knee, and a sharp jab of pain.
It was so unexpected, and hurt so intensely, that the force of it propelled me forward. I stumbled, narrowly avoiding a fall.
My initial reaction was simply that I had been stabbed.
Then, as a young woman barged by, I wondered if the large bag she was carrying had caught me. It appeared to have sharp metal edging around the corners.
A careless accident then, souring what was an otherwise gorgeous summer's day in which I'd come down from my farm in North Yorkshire and planned to visit the Royal Academy of Art and perhaps dip inside the cool interior of London's most beautiful church, St James's.
Only, what happened next proved me horribly wrong. The events of the next few seconds were so swift and practised that it was clear it was a coordinated assault.
A casually dressed group of seven or eight men and women of East Asian origin who had been walking in front of me, dressed in expensive sportswear, had turned and hemmed me in.
One grabbed the straps from a designer Tumi backpack I had slung over my left shoulder and attempted to wrench it off.
Shock and instinct made me hold on to the bag with a tight grip, as another member of the group barged into me. I realised, with growing alarm, that I was being attacked from both sides at the same time.
I was right by a busy bus stop, although no one would have known what was going on. It was slick, brief and clearly engineered to happen in the middle of a crowd.
Then it was over, as quickly as it had begun. I'd held on to my bag, still over my shoulder, and the gang, laughing, walked briskly ahead in the direction of The Ritz hotel.
Feeling battered, confused and a little humiliated, I sought the sanctuary of Fortnum & Mason, a few hundred yards ahead.
There, I realised, to my horror, that my bag's zip had been pulled back, it was wide open, and my purse, which held all my cash and cards had gone. My driving licence had also been taken, which gave the thieves my address.
My heart dropped. I felt sick. Furious, too – the victim of targeted and well-rehearsed attack. Had the jab to the back of my leg meant to floor or distract me?
Either way, suddenly alone in the centre of a city I no longer recognised, I couldn't have felt more vulnerable.
I resolved to find a police officer, but despite walking up and down some of London's busiest central areas – down Jermyn Street, along Piccadilly and over to Leicester Square – I saw none.
West End Central police station, which would have been a ten-minute walk away, had closed permanently in 2021 after being sold to developers for a reported £50 million.
No wonder opportunistic crimes like these are on the rise when bobbies have all but abandoned their beats.
Giving up, I headed home, walking the three miles to my flat in Kensington because I had no cards with which to pay for a bus or taxi.
Dazed and shattered, and with the pain in my leg only growing, I took a breather in Hyde Park to register the crime on my phone using the Met's online form.
The next day I received a call to say that officers from Hammersmith police station would come to take a statement from me at 8am the following morning.
But at the time they were due to arrive, they rang to say they couldn't come because they couldn't find an available police car.
Really? The station is barely a half-hour walk away. Disappointed, I had to make do with discussing it over the phone with the officer instead. Such muggings were, he said, 'rife' in the capital at the moment.
He asked if I wanted to take it any further and, honestly, I didn't. The pointlessness of reporting a crime so long after the event is infuriating – it's a tick-box exercise, nothing more.
The chances of the police catching a gang with my vague description of their clothes and ethnicity must be almost nil.
Ultimately, pursuing a report would mean me enduring a bureaucratic hurdle – filling in more forms online, having more phone calls. And for what?
All of this could have been avoided if there were more police on our streets, which would serve as a deterrent to these thugs. It's futile having a police force at all in London if they can't adequately react to something like this.
No wonder that gang had such a sense of impunity – they can do anything they want because they know no one will stop them.
I've since learned that the CCTV outside Waterstones hasn't been operating for a year because of works on the building, so there will be no record of my assault. Did the gang know that?
Thinking back, I wonder if I was targeted after one of the gang watched me pay for the books I'd bought in Waterstones.
When I returned to Yorkshire on Friday morning, I passed through King's Cross station and there were big notices and announcements on a regular basis saying, 'Please take care, thieves are operating', and assuring travellers they were working closely with the police. What police? Where? It was galling.
The truth is that London is not the city I used to know. Crimes like mine have rocketed more than 23 per cent in a year.
It reminds me of lawless New York in the 1990s when I worked for CBS television. Times Square was so crime-ridden it was a no-go area.
Yet the first priority of the Mayor of London should be to protect the public from lawlessness and keep police stations open in crime hotspots. Sir Sadiq Khan has instead overseen their wholesale closure.
He would do well to learn from Michael Bloomberg who, when he became New York's mayor in 2002, said there would be zero tolerance of violence and robberies on the street.
He launched a public safety initiative and dramatically increased 'stop and frisk' searches. The city became a place where you felt safe once more.
Thankfully, although I'm licking my wounds from the attack, I am strong and fit from working every day on the fields and woodlands at my home.
What chance do the frail and the weak have in London when confronted by the same thing?
Certainly I'd advise anyone not to carry anything that might make them a target; be it a bag, a watch or jewellery.
I will have, for some time, a visible reminder of the day I was mugged in London. What weapon my attackers had used to cause the bruise behind my knee, I don't know but at least it wasn't a knife. My bruise will pass but the mental scar will linger.
Unless crimes like these are tackled, however, others may not be so fortunate.
