Community calls for action against resident who has 'attacked others and repeatedly slashed car tyres' in Sheffield suburb

Carole Needham, of Brick Street, Crookes, presented a petition with 63 signatures at a full council meeting this week asking the council to take action on the perpetrator who has been terrorising their neighbourhood.

She highlighted several incidents where multiple car tyres were cut open and where the alleged culprit verbally abused and assaulted another resident.

Ms Needham said: “As you can imagine the residents have found this a very stressful situation to deal with.

“A number of residents have been hit hard financially because of having their car tyres damaged beyond repair.

“There are concerns that this situation could escalate given that the alleged perpetrator has used a bladed or sharp instrument to cause the damage to the tyres.

“[They] have been witnessed in the act of committing these crime and has already assaulted a resident.

“Not only that but the residents are now having to park elsewhere for fear of their tyres being slashed again.”

She said incidents were reported to South Yorkshire Police but the council also needed to take action, saying the perpetrator breached the tenancy agreement by committing these acts.

“We respectfully request that you take action to resolve this situation before it escalates into something significant,” she told the council.

Councillor Alison Teal, cabinet member for sustainable neighbourhoods, wellbeing, parks and leisure, said: “That sounds like an extraordinarily difficult situation and I have tremendous sympathy for you.

“I do think that you deserve to have action taken and I understand from what I have read from police reports that, as you have already mentioned, there is great difficulty in taking action to detain this person because no one has been willing to give evidence against them to provide a witness statement and so that means the police have had their hands tied somewhat.

“I agree though that it would be tremendously difficult to give a witness statement given what you have described, the behaviour of this person I don’t think any of us would feel safe around that and so certainly we need to look at what can be done there.

“I understand that the police has visited all of the people who have had their cars damaged and that they have stepped up patrols and also council staff are also doing more patrolling so I hope that is something that you have noticed and that you are aware of.

“The other thing they are looking at is trying to set up a mobile camera to be able to capture some evidence that the police will be able to use to charge the person with the crimes that they are committing. So hopefully that is going to happen very soon.

“What I can commit to doing is discussing this with housing colleagues as well.”