Rev Les Isaac

Rev Les Isaac is one of the founders of a fantastic initiative called Street Pastors; now in sixty towns and cities across the UK they have been endorsed by Scotland Yard and have seen crime levels drop where they're working! Joel Edwards said of them "There are many young people who feel excluded by society. Street Pastors takes practical hope to the pavement for these individuals." With such a fantastic movement gaining momentum in our nation, Heather Bellamy decided to find out more.

Heather: Reverend Isaac, let's start at the beginning, when and why did you start Street Pastors?

Rev Isaac: We started Street Pastors because we really felt that a church needed to make a positive and a practical response to some of the really serious anti-social behavioural problems that we have in many of our cities and towns. And so in 2003 we launched this initiative in London and we started off with eighteen people, of which fourteen of them were women. And from then we haven't looked back, because the church has risen to this challenge and we've been just really touching people and meeting people on the night time basis on our streets.

Heather: I believe it was one particular incident that began this journey for you?

Rev Isaac: Yes, you know, obviously a lot of people talk a great deal about the tragedy, the murders of those two young girls in Birmingham in 2003. But in fact before then we were doing some analysis and consultation around the country and even went to America and the Caribbean to look at other models; but on the back of what happened in Birmingham, we really felt, come on we've got to launch this initiative now. It was out of that we launched the initiative and people really began to respond to this.

Heather: What sort of things do Street Pastors deal with every week? Can you paint a picture for us?

Rev Isaac: Very much so. You know, for instance, this Friday night, just last Friday night I was out in three different areas just seeing how they're operating. We have some areas where people are in a pub in a nightclub and something's kicked off in there and one incident happened; a guy ran out of this nightclub screaming and shouting and ripped off the cover of a skip to pull some piece of plank or something to have a fight with a guy. You know, a Street Pastors just went to him and said, 'look come on, quiet down there, come on let's really cool it; what's the problem'. And just talked and pacified him and before we knew it we were working with some other people just to pacify that guy. That was a problem over a tip.

The second incident we went to see; we were in Croydon and the first instance we met was a young girl, two young girls; in fact one of them had her drink spiked and the Street Pastors had to just be with her, talk to her. After a while they went and got a mini cab for her; walked her down to the mini cab office; waited with her and her friends to ensure she got into the mini cab to go home.

The third incident there were people talking about drugs and everything and we just spent time listening to them.

So it's not about just going on the streets but it's actually engaging people who are very vulnerable.

Heather: How do you find the bouncers, the guys out drinking every night and the general public respond to you - generally speaking?

Rev Isaac: Do you know, we took some people out as observers and they were amazed. People said to us, 'you know it's really great what you people are doing. It's about time the church did something like this'. We have Street Pastors all around the country who the pub owners say, 'come in and get a cup of tea. The kebab shop or the chip shop says 'come and have something to eat. We really respect what you people are doing'. And the overwhelming response from the general public, has been, 'this is fantastic.'

Heather: Do you actually make people like Kebab shop owners feel safer with you being out there? Because I imagine they deal with a lot of rowdy people every night themselves?

Rev Isaac: Well they do; one thing that they tell us is that they feel much more reassured when they see us around. You see they call the police when there's an incident; but you know, if we could get to the point where the incident is averted, then they don't have to call the police! We're there, so we often see where people feel a bit rowdy, where people feel agitated. We have a sort of calming effect and we go and talk to them. Let me also point out, we have people who are eighty-six years of age who are on the streets from 10 o'clock at night until sometimes four in the morning. And people respond to them as gran, grandma or grandpa and people really have been blessed by them - with their skills and expertise and experience they have been able to really pacify people and be a calming effect.