Selina Scott criticises lack of police in area following ‘co-ordinated assault’ outside bookshop

After being surrounded by a gang and robbed, Selina Scott speaks out against police cuts in London. Photo / Christie Goodwin, Getty Images, file

Selina Scott, veteran British television newsreader, has revealed she was attacked and robbed in broad daylight in central London last week.

Scott, 74, said her purse was stolen by a gang of seven or eight men and women who surrounded her outside a Waterstones bookshop in Piccadilly.

Her bank cards, driving licence and cash were taken and she was left with bruising behind her knee, as well as a “mental scar”, following the theft last Wednesday NZT.

She criticised the lack of a police presence in the West End after being unable to find an officer afterwards, and blamed Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, for overseeing the closure of a police station in the area.

Scott, one of the most famous faces on television in the 1980s, was the only female newsreader on ITN’s News at 10 before becoming one of the founding anchors of BBC’s Breakfast Time in 1983. Following a 30-year broadcasting career, she now runs a farm in North Yorkshire.

She had travelled to London to visit the Royal Academy of Arts and was stepping out of Waterstones when she was targeted in a “co-ordinated assault” near a busy bus stop.

Scott said the gang quickly surrounded her.

“A casually dressed group of seven or eight men and women of East Asian origin who had been walking in front of me, dressed in expensive sportswear, had turned and hemmed me in,” she wrote in an article for the Mail on Sunday.

She managed to hold onto her bag but her purse was stolen from inside it. She said the gang then walked off “laughing”.

Scott said: “I resolved to find a police officer, but despite walking up and down some of London’s busiest central areas – down Jermyn Street, along Piccadilly and over to Leicester Square – I saw none.

“West End Central police station, which would have been a 10-minute walk away, had closed permanently in 2021 after being sold to developers for a reported £50 million ($113m).

“The first priority of the Mayor of London should be to protect the public from lawlessness and keep police stations open in crime hotspots. Sir Sadiq Khan has instead overseen their wholesale closure.

“I am now only too relieved it wasn’t a knife they used.”

Police officers arranged to visit Scott the following day. However, they then called her in the morning to say that “they couldn’t find an available police car” and would instead speak to her over the phone, she said.

She told them she no longer wished to pursue the matter and the investigation was closed.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “While we understand that the victim in this case was frustrated that she couldn’t see any police officers on the street at the time of the incident, we would like to reassure her and the wider public that a significant number of officers patrol the West End every day to target offenders, including those carrying out thefts and robberies.

“They patrol not just in uniform on foot, but also in plain clothes and in vehicles to have the best opportunity to identify and apprehend suspects.

“We would be happy to talk to the victim in this case to better understand her concerns.”

A spokesman for Sir Sadiq said: “The previous government chronically underfunded the Met, making cuts to policing in London that were in real terms equivalent to more than £1.1 billion.

“These drastic cuts resulted in the loss of thousands of officer posts and the closure of dozens of police buildings across the city as the Met tried to make ends meet.

“Since coming to office in 2016, Sadiq has done everything in his power to support our police.

“This year alone he is providing £1.16b investment for the Met to protect neighbourhood policing in our communities, secure 935 front-line police officer posts and significantly reduce the level of cuts the Met had been planning. This is double the amount provided by his predecessor as mayor.”