Lime Grove gang smash windows ... with Christmas trees

Abandoned trees in the Bush - reader photo

A gang of five went on the rampage in Lime Grove last Sunday with some of the abandoned Christmas Trees that our Council has been encouraging people to leave out on the streets for their collection service since the festive season, resulting in criminal damage and two arrests.

And I know this because some of you were there .. a reader who lives on the road gave me this account:

"..your blog post reminded me - I saw a flying Christmas tree at 1:30am on Sunday morning on Lime Grove". 

"Around five miscreants were walking up the road, damaging cars. I woke to the sound of breaking glass. I then witness one of them pick up a discarded tree and attempt to hurl it in a hammer throw style spin into car/garden/neighbours house".  

"Impressively, by the time they reached the top of Lime Grove they were intercepted by the swift arrival of three police cars and two police vans and promptly arrested".  

"I got dressed and wandered down the road to where our family car is parked to find that we too had been victim of this mindless idiocy - the wing mirror had been kicked or punched and was hanging off by it's assortment of wiring... " 

"As had our neighbours car parked in front of ours. costly repairs I suspect. still hats off to the Police for an amazingly quick response" 

Having spoken to the Police I can confirm two of those arrested, aged 36 and 18, will be appearing in court, charged with the damage in February. Here's the Police's version of events: 

"Police were called at 01:26hrs to reports of a group of males causing damage to motor vehicles along Lime Grove, W12. Police were on scene at 01:29hrs, on arrival a two males were stopped and arrested for causing criminal damage to five motor vehicles". 

But that's not all - the reason the Police knew about what was going on was because of CCTV - and the swift intervention of the staff monitoring the road. So this was very much a Council-Police collaboration that resulted in these alleged thugs being caught. Excellent work, and here's what a Police spokesperson told me this afternoon:

" Hammersmith & Fulham Police would like to extend their thanks to the CCTV operator who generated this call and kept officers constantly updated as to the suspects whereabouts and movements, this is a great example of how the local council and police work in partnership to reduce crime"

It absolutely is - so very many congratulations to them. Well done Council, and once again well done to the local Shepherd's Bush Police team.

And well done to the readers who filled me in on the story - you won't read about this anywhere else and it's a good way of letting others know what was going on, in an incident that I suspect a large number of people heard or saw.