I don't have any problems with antisocial behaviour in the ward - I know of areas where something like this is more likely to happen

I take as the title of this post the words of this man as gunfire came to his town (yet again).

Meet Paul Cockeram, the man who currently sits as councillor for an area of my home town that is known only too well to several activists who walked its hills with me many a time spreading word of our existence and candidature in national elections in the days when I thought we still had a political party that stood up for me and people like me, before I realised it - and the funds its members raised - was actully one man's personal cash machine and retirement fund. 

Yesterday afternoon a man burst into this ladies hairdressing salon in Malpas Road, Newport and opened fire with a gun shooting three women - none fatally thank god - leaving two in need of medical attention at The Royal Gwent Hospital. The weapon used was left at the scene but the man was able to escape the scene before police arrived. After an afternoon and evening of chaos and disruption in a part of the world where thankfully such behaviour is not quite so commonplace as it was in Leeds/bradford when I worked there, the body of the man in question was apparently discovered in "nearby woods". You can read all about it here

I have blogged about the area this man is responsible for before. On this page I brought you the news that the council this man sits on, which was at the time run by the party this man pledges allegiance to, poured hundreds of thousands of pounds down the drain tarting up the pavements and creating a lovely little car park around this derelict ruin on the pretext that the area was in need of renovation for the Ryder Cup. The building itself was the centre of a much larger financial scam of course when one of our "enrichers" ripped off the welsh Assembly Government pledging to turn this place into a "fine indian dining experience" with "upstsirs accomodation for staff" (how many of whom would have been legally permitted to be employed there being of course a matter for speculation)

Now Mr Cockeram is trying to tell you that he is quite shocked as the area he is responsible for is a haven of peace and tranquilty. Well I will give you two reasons why Mr Cockeram is a little out of touch with reality. 

The first of those you can find here where the South Wales Argus's Crime Statistics page for Newport shows ample examples of anti social behaviour in and around the area.

The second is a more personal example. Not that long ago I was sitting at a table in a restaurant at the other end of the line of terraced shops pictured in the photograph above with the man in a white suit, and whie I sat there with my wife and adult children, four very disagreeable louts burst into the premises through the kitchens, spraying an ammonia spray into the face of two of the kitchen workers and holding a knife to the throat of one of the table staff, presumably seeking an easy way of collecting money ahead of their next expected benefits cheque. They did not succeed in their venture, as they were in fact repelled with force by several diners myself included all of us outraged that our fine dining experience in the existing retail catering facilities in the area was disrupted in this fashion.

I am, therefore, amazed Councillor Cockeram seems able to make out the area of town he represents is a haven of peace and tranquilty, but then again, he is a Labour man, and therefore blinkered to the reality of life - and death - on his watch