Woman claims 'vicious pranks' have made her life a nightmare

By Will Davies

A WOMAN from Lower Shiplake claims that a campaign of hate is being waged against her — and says since June this year she has been victimised over half a dozen times.

Elaine Fowler, of Westfield Crescent, says over the last three months she has fallen victim to a series of ‘vicious and childish’ pranks, including a dishwasher, awaiting collection, being dragged in front of her gate to block her in.

“On June 18th somebody had propped a sharp object under the tyre of my car, so when I reversed it burst and I had to pay for a new tyre,” she said.

“Ten days later my camper van was reported to the district council as being parked on the public highway whilst declared as Statutory Off Road Notice when in fact it is parked on land not maintained by the highways division.”

In mid-July, Ms. Fowler says she found her garage door forced open, causing her to have the lock repaired, and on the night of July 27th, a heavy concrete fence post, left by the housing association, Soha, after storms in January, was dragged behind a visiting friend’s car, blocking him in.

She added: “Last Friday, my dogs alerted me to an intruder outside and I discovered that criminal damage had been done to my camper van.

“Then, on Sunday, police rang me to say they had received an anonymous ’phone call to tell them I was parked on the pavement when in fact I was not.

“Police say there is little I can do. Every day now, I have to check the tyres on my car and check to see if something has been stuffed up the exhaust. It is very childish.”

Ms. Fowler says she has no proof as to who is responsible.

Police charge ailing victim £105 to recover stolen car

I'm paying for a crime committed against me'

By Will Davies

A FORMER lorry driver from Henley, who had his car stolen and was then charged over £100 by police to have it recovered, says he feels ‘absolutely gutted’.

Lewis Robinson, aged 50, a chronic diabetic who suffers from serious neurological damage, was awoken by police at his home in Crisp Road at 3 a.m. last Thursday morning and told his car, an E-reg Vauxhall Nova, had been stolen.

“Police gave me a phone number and told me to call it and report the car as stolen,” said Mr. Robinson. “When I did this I was told the car had been abandoned at Hennerton Golf Club, near Wargrave, but that I couldn’t collect it as it had been taken to a forensic yard in Winnersh to be examined.

“Why couldn’t they do the forensic work where the car was found?”

Police told Mr. Robinson the car was so badly damaged that it could not be driven, but when he went to collect it, the car was driveable.“The headlamp was bent, the bonnet and both wings were dented and the windscreen smashed, but it wasn’t written off,” he added.

Mr. Robinson was forced to pay Thames Valley Police £105 to get his car back and is outraged that, although he was the victim, police have made him pay and not the culprits.“I am paying for a crime committed against me,” he said. “I could have had the AA pick it up for free as I am a member.”

He says he has ‘no faith’ in police catching the thieves and said they were ‘not at all sympathetic’ when charging him to collect his car.“It’s a lot of money. I cannot work and have to survive on disability benefit. This money for the police has taken a large chunk of that.”

Mr. Robinson struggles to walk more than a 100 yards, so relies heavily on driving, especially to do his groceries and to get to the many doctors appointments and hospital visits he must make every month. He says the damage to his car would cost over £4,000 to be repaired.

"If this hadn’t happened, the car would have sailed through its MOT next year and I would have been driving it for at least another couple of years," he said.

“As it is, I cannot afford to pay for the repairs so when the MOT is due it will have to be scrapped and I will be carless. Whoever did this doesn’t realise the damage they’ve caused.”

Thames Valley Police says it recovers found stolen vehicles ‘as a matter of course’. The force’s Vehicle Recovery Scheme spells out its reasons as preventing ‘secondary theft’ and ‘an opportunity to fingerprint and examine stolen vehicles under controlled conditions’.

It also states that owners covered by comprehensive or third party, fire and theft insurance ‘will usually find that all such charges are recoverable from their insurers’.
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police, Rebecca Webber said: “Leading UK insurers have been instrumental in establishing with police forces a protocol for dealing with found stolen vehicles.”

SCRAP IT!

Standard readers vote overwhelmingly against new traffic system

By Nigel Wigmore and Will Davies


HENLEY’S CONTROVERSIAL traffic scheme must go. That’s the overwhelming verdict of Henley residents in our special traffic survey to see if they want to keep the town’s controversial new traffic system.

On the last day of the poll, a total of 643 votes had been cast, including 253 online, resulting in 85 per cent voting against the scheme. From day one of the poll, when it was launched on August 10th, it quickly became clear that most people did not want the scheme to stay.

Town councillor Barry Wood told the Standard: “Oxfordshire County Council would be crazy to disregard these figures. They show a huge amount of dissatisfaction with the scheme.”

Cllr. Wood added: “The way ahead now is to retain what is good in the system and get rid of what is bad. The most important aspect of this now is to improve air quality.”

In a letter to the Standard, Cllr. Wood had attacked South Oxfordshire District Council for only measuring levels of nitrogen dioxide in the town when traffic emissions include ‘amongst others, sulphur dioxide, particulates and carcinogens’, which were ‘even more damaging to human health than nitrogen dioxide’.

In a heated debate during a full meeting of Henley Town Council on Tuesday, Cllr. Peter Skolar said: “It was my election promise to get rid of the scheme. But we can’t simply reverse it — going back to the status quo is simply not an option.

“Three elderly ladies have been killed at the junction with Duke Street and Hart Street. If we go back to two lanes to speed up the traffic, and as a consequence have a fourth death there, it will be on all our consciences as councillors.

“The ITS (Integrated Transport Strategy) has succeeded in keeping traffic out of Henley, which is exactly what it was designed to do.

“But it needs to be modified, and the one single item which will reduce levels of pollution by as much as ten per cent would be a ban on HGVs through the town. The removal of HGVs would have a much more significant effect than anything the ITS can do.”

Cllr. Skolar said he has also requested both a traffic count from the county council and an annual mean figure for pollution levels in the town.

Cllr. Wood said: “As a council, we must come to a conclusion regarding the scheme.”

A vote was carried to hold a special ITS council meeting.

Responding to the Standard poll, Oxfordshire County Council spokesman Cllr. Ian Hudspeth, the council’s cabinet member for transport, said: “We listened to what people said they wanted in Henley’s town referendum and went ahead and implemented the scheme.

“Traffic levels all over England are rising and towns similar to Henley are facing the same kinds of issues. The scheme was not aimed at meeting this increasing demand but at making the best use of the existing road network within the town.”

Tyre slasher in street orgy of destruction

Drivers left facing big repair bills

By Will Davies


A VANDAL who damaged ten cars parked in Crisp Road, Henley has been described as ‘mindless’ by police.

On Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday, the vehicles were scratched with a stanley knife and around six had at least one tyre slashed.

Crisp Road resident Dee Irving had her car scratched and its tyres slashed and her son’s car scratched. “I have only just bought it as an 18th birthday present for him,” she said. “He’s absolutely gutted.”

Pointing along the road mainly occupied by young families, she added: “This is the first time something like this has happened here. Some cars have really deep scratches.”

One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, says it will cost over £1,500 to have her Jeep resprayed. Her neighbour had two tyres on her Ford Mondeo slashed and such bad scratching that it will cost ‘well over a thousand pounds’ to repair. “One tyre you can get away with as you have a spare, but having two done completely immobilises you,” she said.

Many of the vehicles that had their tyres slashed were work vans. Judith Ralph, whose husband Philip is a builder, said: “It’s pretty sick. The reason they got away with it is because they had good cover. They can’t be seen as all the houses are set back from the road and are high up.”

Another resident, whose partner’s van had two tyres slashed and which remains jacked-up on the street, said he has had to ride a bike to work. She said: “You can’t just get new van tyres - you have to order them.

“It is so random and a total shock. We don’t get any trouble round here. I reckon it is people walking back drunk after a night out on the town. I mean, who goes around with a Stanley knife?”

Sgt. Nick Glister said: “This was a mindless, pointless crime and we are keen to find the person responsible.“This may seem like a minor incident but if you add up the damage done to this number of cars it comes to thousands of pounds.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sgt. Glister by calling 08458 505 505. If you don’t want to leave your name, ring Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Pony rescuers stranded on island

By Will Davies

WHAT started off as a gen­tle canter along the beach turned into a 10-hour drama on Monday, when a pony and two women were forced to spend a night stranded on an island after being cut off by the tide.

Brigitte Chen and her 14-year-old son Auberi had travelled with their family to the Norfolk coast from their home in Park Corner near Nettlebed, for their annual holiday, riding on the beaches.

Auberi described his beloved 13.2-hand pony, Budd, as `the calmest horse around’. But when he took him onto Holkham Beach for the first time, a pack of 40 Pony Club riders stormed past, spooking 17-year-old Budd, who unseated his rider and bolted out to sea.

“He was a bit excited as he had never been on a beach before,” Auberi said.“He spun round. threw me off and cantered around us in circles about 15 times, before bolting three miles to an island off Wells in a flat-out gallop. I was very upset, as I am very fond of him.”

Budd finally ran out of steam in a salt marsh in the middle of a creek - the tide rapidly encroaching. Auberi added: “The water was only three foot deep when he went out there, but within half an hour the tide had swelled and where he had crossed would have been at least 20 ft deep.”

A canoeist on a Scout expedition found Budd tangled up in his reins and managed to cut him loose, but could not rescue the pony. The coast guard informed Auberi and worried mother Brigitte, a native of Norfolk who manages the stables at Ewelme Park, that Budd would have to remain on the island until the tide abated.

Mrs. Chen, along with friend Suzanna Marshall from Wallingford, heroically volunteered to be taken by lifeboat across to the island, where they found a shaken but healthy Budd. She said: “We stayed under the stars in overalls lent to us by the coast guard. We had to stay awake all night to keep an eye on Budd. We spent most of the time chatting and looking out for shooting stars.

“The worst bit was at around 4 a.m. when the tide went down and we had to lead Budd back to safety. Walking in the dark through the marshes, which are about five miles long and two miles wide, was so scary - it was awful.”

Suzanne Marshall said: “If it wasn’t for Alan Frarv, the coast guard, I’m not sure we would have made it. He was a tank of muscle and knew exactly which way to lead us back to avoid the quick sand.

“It’s a miracle Budd didn’t break his leg.”

Although shaken, Budd is unscathed and back in his field. “We’re going to take him back to Holkham Beach tomorrow.” Mrs. Chen added, “but he’ll be on a lunge rein and will not be going anywhere near the pony club.”

U-turn?

Demand to scrap failing traffic system as town moves towards 'gridlock'

By Will Davies

TWO years ago the people of Henley gave the go-ahead to a new ‘intelligent’ traffic system, in the hope of solving the town’s traffic problems and lowering high levels of pollution.

Designed to keep the town’s streets free from congestion, the system has experienced a catalogue of errors, from intermittent faults to claims of rising pollution levels, while massive queues have built up on White Hill, Reading Road and the Fair Mile.

Town councillor Barry Wood, who was a staunch supporter of the scheme at the outset, is now calling for its full removal. He says that due to the county council’s ‘arrogance’, Henley ‘is slowly moving towards gridlock’.

Cllr. Wood claims there have been ‘adverse increases’ in the length of queues, cross-town journey times and noxious and carcinogenic fumes in Greys Road, Duke Street and Bell Street, causing increased frustration to drivers and residents.

He said: “The outcomes of our traffic deliberations will influence the town’s growth and prosperity for the next decade.

“Oxfordshire County Council has failed to implement a workable scheme and it stands condemned of failing to manage the technical aspects of the scheme and failing to communicate efficiently throughout the project implementation.

“Now the county council wishes to walk away from the problems of the scheme without resolving them,” he said.

“It arrogantly states that the scheme is permanent. This is not the way to gain the acceptance of the residents of this town. We deserve better.”

But at the first meeting of the Integrated Transport Strategy (ITS) members working group on Tuesday, it was agreed from a report by the county council’s senior transport planner, Cath Browning, that ‘very little can be done to substantially improve traffic flow’, as ‘the number of vehicles wishing to pass through Henley exceeds the capacity of the main junctions; therefore queuing traffic will always be seen in the peaks’.

What could be done, the report suggests, would be ‘to the detriment of the pedestrian,’ whereby pedestrian crossings are removed so as not to impede the flow of traffic. A trial is currently in place to give more ‘green time’ to Reading Road traffic coming into town (northbound).

This will be monitored once schools re-open in September and a decision will be made on whether to continue with it or return to the original signal timings.

The possibility of scrapping the traffic lights at the junction, in favour of a mini roundabout, has been discounted, as engineers believe it would have a detrimental impact on Duke Street and ‘would not reduce queuing.’

The report states that ‘queues on Reading Road and Station Road could be made worse and the pedestrian crossings would be lost.’

Ian Hudspeth, OCC cabinet member for transport implementation, says the scheme, which he insists is permanent, ‘was never designed to alleviate traffic’.
He said: “This is not something we’ve simply dumped on Henley. There were jams before the scheme. Above all, it was designed to reduce pollution levels in the town centre.”

Former mayor of Henley, Ian Reissmann, believes that the potential benefits of the scheme are ‘clearly not being felt’.He said: “I believe the trial scheme, while not perfect, can improve pollution and traffic flows in Henley. However, I am concerned that the difficulties OCC has faced in implementing the scheme have caused the problems we’ve all seen.”

On September 16th, Henley Town Council will make a decision on whether or not to pull out of the scheme. Mr. Reissmann is calling on the county council, as the highways authority, to put the required effort into sorting these problems out; publish the pollution and traffic figures and then allow all the residents to have an informed debate on the future of the scheme when the deadline is reached.

He added: “Then we can decide if this trial is permanent.”

The ITS members working group meets again on October 30th, when a report will be produced, detailing air pollution figures and the efficiency of SCOOT, the computer-controlled traffic light system.