aimee p sorry to hear about your ordeal hope you recover fast, best wishes.

Southlonder you make an interesting point with reference to affluent people moving into the area & expect an increase in these types of incidents. Had a discussion with some friends along these lines yesterday going past the restaurants in Honor Oak at around 9.30pm - the restaurants were packed & some overflowing onto the pavement with young to middle aged affluent people spending their hard earned cash and enjoying themselves & it is good to see that, it is good for our national & local economy, however, these individuals will be seen as targets by criminals & also there are social implications with any form of change.

There are studies that show in some areas there is an increase in crime especially personal robbery with commercial and residential gentrification & other areas where there is a fall in crime levels. Studies show that where there are falls in crime in upcoming affluent areas it is largely due to the affluent people having greater political influence and can therefore request a heightened police presence.

Residential gentrification can also result in the area losing single rooms/bed sits etc & an increase in rents (which has happened in SE23) -some of these young or older people may get displaced & move to other nearby affordable areas & return to their old areas to commit crimes and anti social behaviour, this has been documented in studies.

Moving forward not sure if there will ever be a link in SE23 between rising affluence and crime, I hope not. However, in my opinion the Police & the Council should look at having crime prevention policies addressing the increasing levels of affluence & gentrification in some areas within Lewisham. Hope someone is keeping an eye on the areas crime statistics to identify any trends & implement prevention & crime enforcement strategies as required.