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ANTI-SOCIALLiving With ASBOs
THEY HAVE MESSY GARDENS It became quite obvious as I was walking down the typical village road of semi-detached bungalows, which house I was going to. The front garden was filled with broken bikes, rubbish, car tyres and wooden fruit crates. It was the only house on the street that looked like this and stood out like a big zit on the lip of the person you’re having your first date with. THEY ARE ACTUALLY PRETTY FRIENDLY When I arrived, a three-year-old girl called Elvira ran to the cab to ask if I was there to visit her house. I replied in the positive so she invited me in, where I was greeted by the whole family. It was a little tense until her brother Craig told me to sit down because I was making the place look untidy. Even when his 12-year-old brother Bobby offered to fight me for £5 and told me he could fix my face for me, I still felt like part of the family. THEY UPSET THE OLD, VULNERABLE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR Before I arrived there, I tried to get into contact with them via a neighbour since they were ex-directory. The elderly-sounding neighbour told me he would not give them a message from me because he claimed they tried to burgle him and were no longer on speaking terms. To be honest, I don’t know who started the war, but partially thanks to the neighbour, two of the kids have ASBOs with “burglary” attached to them, so it’s not surprising they are bitter. GETTING AN ASBO MAKES YOU MORE POPULAR You become a hero in school and will make the front page of your local rag. Your friends love you and think you’re really cool, but unfortunately the rest of the community aren’t so keen. Craig appears in his local newspaper two or three times every month with headlines like “Boy, 10, is handed ASBO for burglary”. The result of this is that the police will stop you any time they see you. At the ages of ten and 12, Craig and Bobby were both handcuffed and carted off from their house for breaking into their neighbour’s house to get their football back. They claim the old man put it in his house and wouldn’t give it back, so they smashed his window to go and get it. They were both later arrested and put in cells for the night and both were allegedly covered in bruises the next day. Pictures of the two kids have also been given out recently to loads of local shops, although most of them are unwilling to display them since they are friends of the family. ASBO KIDS RECEIVE DEATH THREATS Craig told me he was often threatened. He said: “One day when I went to school, some adults who are the parents of kids I know, followed me to school and threatened me in the street. At the time, I was really scared. I wanted to go home and tell my mum.” Three-year-old Elvira told me that her and mum had been called: “Whore, slag and pikey.” Her mum backed this up by telling me: “Why’s she got a reason to lie? She’s only three-years-old.”  THEY WEREN’T ANTI-SOCIAL TO ME I had a great time with them and thought they were a great family unit. Unfortunately, they get mixed up in minor offences, like burglary, breaking into schools and underage driving (all of which contributed to Craig getting an ASBO).THINGS BECOME PRETTY RESTRICTED Having your own special set of laws can be a drag. Craig’s been told that he has to be supervised at all times while in public and can’t pick things up in other people’s houses without permission. THEY HATE POLICE. D'UH The two kids dislike the police harassing them all the time and blame them for having ASBOs. Craig’s mum was given the option between him going to a young offender’s institute for two years or getting an ASBO, so he had no choice but to take it. He doesn’t think it will change him. BUT THEY'VE GOT A SENSE OF HUMOUR ABOUT IT Bobby told me a story about being stopped by the police while driving a Ford Escort, which he assured them wasn’t hot. He told them his name was Mickey Mouse and that he lived at 700 West Ball Road, Anaheim, California. They weren’t impressed. THEY DON'T LIKE IT WHEN YOU KILL THEIR PETS While I was taking a photo of Craig, Bobby came out with their favourite gerbil. Being the only male it was essential to the future of their gerbil farm. I noticed him teasing their Jack Russell “Pip” with it, so asked him to do it again so I could take a picture. Bobby dropped the gerbil and the dog chased the gerbil under their car. For a brief moment, I thought the gerbil might just make it, especially when I saw it appear at the other side of the car. Unfortunately, the dog had other ideas and grabbed the little fur ball in its mouth, before tossing its flinching body onto the ground. It was dead. I felt guilty about this, especially since they had been so welcoming to me. Bobby decided the only way to make Craig feel better about it, (it was Craig’s favourite) was to pay him for it. I asked Craig what a fair price was. He told me a living one would cost £3.50, so the dead one was worth £1.75. Looking back on this, I feel a little bad that I didn’t have enough money to give them the whole £3.50. We held a funeral ceremony for the gerbil in their garden and made a gravestone using a piece of slate and a blue marker pen. The service was very peaceful and we all learned a lot about how precious and vulnerable life really is. THEY DRINK POWDERED MILK Isn’t this just for Africa? While I was there, the kids kindly offered to make a cup of tea. They asked me if I wanted powdered milk or cow’s milk and when I replied the latter, they told me: “Bad luck mate, we’ve only got powdered.” I’ve never had powdered milk before so kept an open mind but when the tea turned up it didn’t look nice. All the powder was sitting on the top of the tea, which was kind of cold, so I threw it away in the garden. I had a glass of water instead.  THEY ARE QUITE AGGRESSIVE The whole time I was there (about five hours), the two boys were constantly fighting with each other. I wanted to take a picture of them with their arms around each other but each time I tried to set this up, the older boy Bobby would punch, pinch or strangle his younger brother. He’d also attack his three-year-old sister by picking her up and putting her in headlocks. She didn’t really seem to mind this that much and actually informed me that she was looking forward to starting a course of martial arts lessons, presumably so she could join in with the constant “play-fighting” around the house.“I’m going to do martial arts” she told me, before screaming over the garden walls at the neighbours to “SHUTTTTTTT UPPPPPPP!!!!” because the old man next door had decided to mow his lawn. ALEX STURROCK
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