A PENSIONER has told how she was forced to carry a KNIFE to defend herself after drugged-up moped yobs brought utter hell to a once quiet estate.
Pat Reynolds, 67, was left with no other option after months of anti-social behaviour which has seen a graffiti-covered tunnel near her home treated like a race track by the louts.
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The dangerous yobs also use the hell hole in Spondon, Derbyshire, as an all-night drug and drink den which by the morning is covered in beer cans, broken glass and drugs paraphernalia.
To add insult to injury, the tearaways poo all over the tunnel leaving residents too scared to leave their homes and parents begging their kids not to go outside.
Mum-of-two Pat, who uses the short tunnel under the A52 that links her street to the village side of the neighbourhood, said: “I cycle through it in the day but wouldn’t use it at night.
“We all use it as a short cut. I used to take a knife around with me but I don’t any more as I’ve got older and wiser.
“I dread to think what they get up to in there. It doesn’t feel all that safe to be out and about when they are.”
Sadly, Pat is not the only person living in fear of the youths as they charge up and down the tunnel at break neck speeds on illegal mopeds while smoking weed.
Retired carer Heather Pidgeon, 69, uses the tunnel regularly to visit her elderly mum and daughter who live on the other side.
She told The Sun Online: “The state it gets in is shocking. The kids are accountable. They are unruly.
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“The rids race through on their bikes, mopeds and motorised scooters. I wouldn’t go through it at night.
“I’m even too fearful to leave my house then.”
Heather even a claims a young lad was “stabbed for his watch and phone” in the tunnel, he fortunately survived.
When The Sun Online visited the notorious tunnel in daylight there was a dumped shopping trolly, shards of glass and litter and even a big pile of poo.
One individual walking past noted “that’s nothing, you should see it normally”.
Meanwhile retired council worker Margaret Taylor, 73, said the worst of the drug taking and “fast and furious” moped riding starts when kids knock off school.
She slammed how the layabouts run off before they can get caught by cops, who check the tunnel every so often but have never made any arrests.
Margaret, who lives with her cocker spaniel Penny, complained she had had “puncture after puncture” on her mobility scooter she rides because of all the glass shards in the tunnel.
Another local, who regularly uses the tunnel – which offers a 10 to 15 minute short cut to the village – said there was “outrage among the pensioners” about the state of it.
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They fumed: “Drug dealers are using it and nothing it being done to stop them.”
The woman, who declined to be named and his lived in the area for more than 60 years, said: “Sadly it’s the way society is now.”
Meanwhile gran Joyce, 74, lamented: “It’s mainly pensioners living around here and it’s terrifying for us.
“But you daren’t say anything because you’ll just get a mouthful off them and we tried to avoid them so we stay indoors.
“We would find it too intimidating otherwise.”
Joyce, who has lived on Arnhem Terrace with husband David, also 74, for 48 years, added: “It used to be a lovely quite area but now we get all the riff-raff and it does spoil it for us.”
A spokesperson for Derbyshire Police’s Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) for Spondon said officers were trying to tackle anti-social behaviour in action dubbed Operation Motocrush.
An unregistered motorbike was seized and sent to be crushed after the teenage rider was stopped and reported for riding without a licence, insurance or helmet.
The yob was also issued a warning for the way he was riding the death trap, DerbyshireLive reported.
Another teen was also reported for a number of traffic offences, with partner agencies now looking at his housing arrangements as a result of his offending.
Councillor Yvonne Williams, who lives in the area, reportedly said: “One of the things that we are looking at doing now is making the Arnhem tunnel a priority for the coming financial year to see if there is something we can do to stop these mopeds coming in and out because it is really dangerous.
“We are also looking at what we can do to make the tunnel a nicer place as well. We did some work several years ago with graffiti artists in memory of some young people who had unfortunately died.
“But it has been a long while and so we are looking into that and getting it a little spruced up.”
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