loic rich finally flees the rural idyll that uncaring authorities have abandoned to lawlessness |
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For the past two years my Cornish village of St Day has been under siege by idle, ferocious children. With the police unable to cope with daily yobbish attacks, and local politicians in denial over this 'anti-social behaviour', exasperated households have fled the village in droves. Fed up with the lawlessness, violence and fear I have witnessed in St Day, I too have packed up and left.
With depressing familiarity, the school holidays saw a range of thuggish acts. The old Parish Church, looked after by local volunteers, was desecrated; ancient pillars toppled over, the font smashed to the ground.
Most nights, residents were treated to unlicensed, uninsured mini-motos and other illegal vehicles screeching round the village, often egged on by the young driver's parents,
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| With depressing familiarity, the school holidays saw a range of thuggish acts |
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buoyed up by a day's drinking at the pub.
I watched with dismay the village's abandonment: familiar residents drifting away; surveyors becoming a common sight. "People move to Cornwall, expecting something better," sighed one, clutching his clipboard. "But isolated villages can breed trouble, and are often where councils dump problem families.
"Estate agents talk the place up as an 'idyllic rural lifestyle'. When realising it's as bad, or worse than where they're from, newcomers leave. There's always plenty more idiots waiting to follow."
Due to violent attacks on staff, ambulances and fire engines only answer calls to one St Day estate when accompanied by armoured police.
In the weeks before I leave, I witnessed a drunken man, having already been beaten up, staggering around the village with a knife and a spade. Villagers set upon him like dogs. It was a cruel, hypocritically mismanaged vigilante act – one of the children I saw kicking his slumped form was the same one 
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