The private police patrolling London The middle classes have lost faith in the Met
One golden autumn afternoon, in a quiet North London suburb, I stumbled across a portal to a possible English future. Hadley Wood sits on the fringes of the city, between Barnet and the M25, seemingly forgotten in its own little world of metroland Tudor houses, dotted with fields of ponies and commemorative plaques to steam age pioneers. Yet between the wisteria and the Jags, there is a sense of unease.
Roving bands of career burglars stalk the area. “They come every day whether you’re inside or not,” explains one local man from behind his wheelie bin. “They don’t seem to care.” Everything is up for grabs, the man tells me, from Amazon packages in doorways to the Lexus in the drive.
Brazenness is hardly surprising. Hadley Wood is one of countless British communities effectively abandoned by the protective arm of the state. In 2018, the area suffered 65 break-ins, a criminal romp that nonetheless failed to stir the short arm of the law. Such an experience now marks suburban life in the capital, with the Met failing to solve a single crime in 160 residential areas of London over the last three years. “The police gave up on this area years ago,” one shrugging resident explains.
Such is the national mood. Trust in the police is at an historic low, with crime recently surging to the fourth-biggest issue in the country. Yet in this vacuum of order, Hadley Wood offers one potential solution. For £100 a month per household, a firm called My Local Bobby will be your private police force, patrolling the lanes and back alleys, responding in 30 seconds to a break-in and even picking your wife up from the station in the dark. I spotted them myself, crawling by in patrol cars as I strolled the empty streets. Behind them, meanwhile, is a team that’ll privately prosecute criminals through the courts, with a conviction rate of 100%, a service recently used by Reform UK after the alleged assault of a police officer at Manchester Airport.
