They strike fear into the hearts of law-abiding folk, they panic pensioners, trouble mums and erode pride in the community. Estate agents say they tarnish an area. Even the police hate them. What are they? Incident signs. Big, bright-yellow police placards, edged in black, with blue letters atop, shouting: 'Serious crime. Did you see or hear anything? Call this number.' But few Londoners ever do. Not because they do not want to, but because they cannot help. 'Can you help?' 'Erm, nope, actually, I was in bed/at work/out clubbing.' Walk any London street and you will shuffle past an incident sign. The city puts up a new one every eight hours, appealing for help on serious assaults, shootings, murders, but more usually 'a serious traffic accident'. The police confessed last week they may call time on the signs. The leads generated are minimal, and more than offset by the anxiety instilled in the community. As studies show, the fear of crime is more harmful than actual crime. Thinking you will be raped or murdered in your bed is not healthy. Community groups have long said all the signs do is shout: 'Get out now while you can'. Or worse, 'Can you help? We have not got a clue.' Engender confidence they do not. The signs are also self-defeating in the long term, because the people who would help flee to the suburbs. Community constables say the yellow signs act much like tabloid billboards, raising suspicion, fanning fears and prompting prejudice. Police should be reassuring people the streets are safe, not telling them it is a jungle. The problem is heightened, critics say, because there is little control over when and where the signs go up or are taken down. One placard, The Daily Telegraph said, sat on a street corner for four years, warning about pickpockets: the gang was caught years ago. No signs say 'Crime solved.' There is also misinformation. Four years ago a sign stood right outside my new flat: 'Serious armed robbery, can you help?' A week later, 200 metres away, one declared: 'Double murder. Can you help?' A week later, another placard: 'Serious assault.' Visiting parents were duly reassured: the armed robbery outside my door happened 200 metres away, and involved a boy armed with toenail scissors trying to rob mobile phone cards from a supermarket; the double murder was a pinpoint hit on two Turkish mafia, shot in the back of the head as they dealt heroin from their car. The serious assault was not a random attack - a girlfriend hit her cheating boyfriend with a bottle. Lesson? Don't read too much into the signs.
