Mods, skinheads give way to new scourge of London - the 'hoodies'

London

On a street in Islington, North London, on a drizzly spring night stand some 'hoodies', about 10 supposedly wayward teenagers dressed in hooded tops and sportswear, a group labelled as troublemakers much as mods, skinheads and football fans were by generations past. Just encountering such a group sets the nerves jangling.

To avoid trouble, friends say, it's best to cross the road, but only if they haven't seen you. If they have, nonchalantly walk through. Like a feral dog, the teens can smell your fear. It's a sign of the times, what with the recent panic about teenage knifings - known as shankings - and shootings in the capital. Headlines scream of knife fights, murders, serious assaults, mostly perpetrated by teenagers on teenagers. Knife crime is up 60 per cent in the last six years; there are five knife crimes an hour in Britain; 11-year-olds carry knives; some schools want airport-style metal detectors.

There is a palpable fear that some London teenagers are out of control in the wake of two fatal teenage stabbings in recent weeks and three deadly shootings last month.

Neither of the stabbing victims were gang members, nor did they have a history of crime. 'They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,' said former policeman Kevin Everard, the founder of the Be Safe Project, a London programme that goes into schools to educate kids on the harsh realities of what can happen when they carry a knife.

A generation ago, only violent thugs had a knife; even football hooligans rarely 'tooled up'. But times have changed.

The Be Safe Project began in 1999 after magistrates warned they were seeing more youngsters with knives.