Westminster police chief reassures Emiratis after London attacks

Chief superintendent Paul Rickett said that “in no way, shape or form” are UAE nationals being targeted after two robberies within a short distance from each other in the UK capital.

Westbourne Gardens, in Paddington, west London, is an affluent area of the UK capital and is the site of the second violent robbery against Emiratis in one month. Randi Sokoloff for The National

LONDON // The man in charge of police investigations into this month’s two vicious attacks on Emiratis in London says that in “no way, shape or form” are UAE nationals being deliberately targeted.

In an exclusive interview with The National, Chief Superintendent Paul Rickett, of Westminster Borough, said no link had been found for the two crimes.

“It is absolutely the case that there is no evidence or intelligence to suggest the two incidents are linked in any way,” Chf Supt Rickett said.

“And it is also absolutely the case that we have no intelligence or evidence to suggest that Emiratis, in particular, are being targeted.

“London remains an incredibly safe capital city. There should be no reason why any Emirati should feel concerns about travelling to London, any more than they would about travelling to anywhere else in the world.

“These are two isolated incidents. Emiratis were not being targeted in any way, shape or form and I would continue to encourage everyone to come and visit London.”

As yet, no arrests have been made after the robbery just before 1am on Tuesday, when seven men armed with guns, knives and hammers broke into a Westbourne Gardens flat in Paddington.

There they menaced three Emiratis – Ali Al Tamimi, 51, his wife, 47, and a guest who had dropped in to visit.

At one stage they ordered the wife to sit, then placed a gun to her head. They tried several times to stab Mr Al Tamimi before fleeing with goods and cash worth more than Dh20,000.

Mr Al Tamimi and his wife had been in the city for five days and were travelling without their children.

The first incident involved three Emirati sisters in a Marble Arch hotel being brutally attacked by a man wielding a hammer in the early hours of April 6.

One of the women, Khuloud Al Najjar, 36, lost an eye and now has only 5 per cent brain function.

Her sister Ohoud, 34, had her skull fractured in two places, a broken left arm and a fractured cheek.

The third sister, Fatima, 31, had a fractured skull and a ruptured eardrum.

Chf Supt Rickett said many of his most senior police officers working on that case had been greatly upset by it.

“The level of violence in the Cumberland Hotel incident was such even some of our most experienced, hardened detectives were absolutely shocked and distraught with what they had to deal with,” he said.

Chf Supt Rickett, who was due to update the UAE Embassy on investigations late yesterday, said the family in the second attack were moved to another flat and were continuing to work with police.

He also thanked UAE police for their assistance in investigations.

He said most crime in London was petty theft, as it was in most major cities.

“The reality is, in Westminster alone, we have more than two million people moving in and out of the city every day,” Chf Supt Rickett said.

“As a result of that, it does attract opportunist criminals.”

Scotland Yard works with partners in London to give tourists basic safety advice, he said.

“What we do is try and educate with crime prevention programmes in Westminster,” Chf Supt Rickett said.

“We often do operations where we give leaflets to tourists as they come in and out of Tube stations to be aware of their surroundings.

“But it is the case people do put their handbags down sometimes when they have a coffee and, lo and behold, their phone has gone or their iPad has gone.

“But we have a huge amount of effort and operations going on on a daily basis to combat that and we have been really successful.”

He said crime in London had actually plummeted to record lows in recent years.

“If you look at what we call theft from a person, which is dipping-in-the-handbag snatches, Westminster has seen a 20 per cent reduction year on year.”

This represents about 1,000 fewer victims of crime and is the largest reduction in London, Chf Supt Rickett said.

“Just to put some context around that, in Westminster we account for 18 per cent of all the theft from persons in all of London.

“Overall, crime is down 13 per cent [in Westminster].

“If you look at burglary figures [in London] they are the lowest they have been in about four decades.

“But, sadly and tragically, you do get incidents such as we have seen with these poor families in the last few weeks.”

“We just reiterate and reassure Emiratis or any other foreign nationals wanting to visit London, it’s an incredibly safe city. These incidents are rare, they are not linked and, thankfully, they are isolated.”

Wealthy visitors from the Arabian Gulf make up a culturally diverse population in west London, Chf Supt Rickett said.

“The demographic from our visiting population changes year on year but you only have to walk around the West End and see the absolute wealth and diversity of our visiting population, as well as the diversity of our resident population,” he said.