As many other towns around Essex start to spiral out of control it is Rayleigh that is often overlooked by critics. With violence escalating and the hoards of hooded gangs slowly dominating the streets it is not long before the once quaint town of Rayleigh is transformed into yet another ghetto of in-bred *****’s and ****’s obsessed with destroying anything around. The evidence against Rayleigh mounts up as crime begins its rise and education begins its fall. As Chris Roberts, security guard at Sainsbury’s Rayleigh Weir explained “Rayleigh isn’t as bad as Basildon yet, I got threatened with needles and knifes when I was there”.
You only have to look back to Halloween, a time when Rayleigh was considered the worst place to be in Essex, to see that the state of our streets is out of control and needs some serious attention. The gangs of malicious teenagers blocked roads with traffic cones, shattered windows on buses and shouted abuse at anyone brave enough to walk past them. As thisisessex.co.uk and the Echo reports “A BUS driver…told of his Halloween horror when a gang of 150 youths surrounded his bus and attacked it”. Rayleigh youths obviously did not take the advice of Schools Partnership Officer Jacque Barber who stated:
“Youngsters must also be careful about any tricks. They must not do anything to cause damage to people’s clothes or houses. They also need to understand that not all residents will want to be involved in Halloween and that their wishes have to be respected¨
This is not the Rayleigh that I remember, not the quiet town I grew up in and I believe it is time for the stupidity to stop. With police presence on a steady increase, especially Friday nights alongside the Pink Toothbrush, we are regaining a bit of our much loved town and hopefully soon may start to see an end of the violence that is beginning to spread like a plague through most parts of Essex.
An incident occurred, highlighting my point, a few months back in which a friend of mine was viciously attacked. After the attacker yelled out “Why you give me dirty look in registration yesterday” and a response of “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to” the girl continued to follow my friend and after a sharp pain in the back of the head she discovered she had been hit with every ****’s favourite drink, Lambrini. 15 year old girls hitting someone over the back of the head with a wine bottle simply because of a dirty look is a fair reflection on how all of the towns listed are shaping up but it was unexpected to hear it in Rayleigh. After a considerable amount of stitches and some well earned rest the victim, Sophie, recovered and decided that this was one fight that she would not lose and would stand against the disrespect for other people’s lives. With a trip to the judicial courts the attacker was found guilty for Actual Bodily Harm with a 9 month referral sentence in which she had to see a youth offender and apologise to Sophie with a fine of £100.
While have the rather strong opinion that incidents such as this should not be treated much like they are at schools if you talk out in class or throw a rubber at someone else I do believe this to be a rare moral victory and would urge anyone else to do the same. Do not stand there and take it, go to the courts and get them the punishment they deserve.
Rayleigh consists of many different **** hangouts in which you are likely to be met by hostility or abuse. The worst of these is the church where you would, in the daytime, normally find exactly the opposite kind of people. If a church can be turned into a football ground with the road and cars often goal nets what chance does the rest of Rayleigh have. We have already been driven from any park and often get abuse thrown at us for going anywhere near Woolworths and Cost Cutters. I ask where will it stop? When will he police finally ban the congregating of illiterate fools from our streets? I have grown up in Rayleigh and have never been forced to hang around on street corners and strangely I have also learnt manners and acquired an education. This was not particularly hard and I would recommend others try it, although that does not seem likely with today’s generation of abusive, child carrying spongers.
