Met officers warn of rising gang recruitment among children in Lambeth and Southwark

Police in south London are warning that gangs are increasingly targeting some of the area's most vulnerable children, with officers describing recruitment as a choice young people are being forced to make before they leave school. PC Zoe Ticehurst and Det Con Faisal El Issaoui, who serve on the Metropolitan Police's proactive offender targeting and management team, said they regularly encounter households where parents live in fear of what a knock on the door might bring. Ticehurst said some parents have told officers they assume that if the police come to see them, the news will be that their child has been killed.

The officers took a BBC reporter around neighbourhoods in Lambeth and Southwark, pointing out the environment they believe shapes the choices young people make. El Issaoui said it is extremely difficult for many young people raised on these estates, because the criminal economy around them is all they can see. He argued that a decision has to be faced at a certain age — either to become involved or to walk away from the money and status on offer.

Seasonal patterns appear to matter. The officers said the summer, when schools shut and longer, warmer days bring children out onto the streets, is a prime window for gangs to recruit. Vulnerable children are easily identified, El Issaoui said, particularly those from more deprived backgrounds or those who have been excluded from school. The initial approach is often small: being handed cash to hold on to something, or to carry an item from one place to another as a way of making quick money.

Ticehurst said that is how it usually begins, and that the warning signs often appear at home. Teenagers return with new possessions their parents never bought them, or simply vanish for days at a time, and by then are already caught up in something they should not be. She recalled visiting young people's homes where parents were visibly frightened, describing what she called the sense that a child in their final year of secondary school must make a choice: go into the gang, or not.

Official figures underline the concern, even as the capital's overall picture improves. Homicide in London fell to its lowest level in more than a decade last year, but 11 of the killings recorded since April — roughly a fifth of the total — occurred in just two boroughs, Lambeth and Southwark. Alongside those deaths came a run of non-fatal shootings and stabbings, and recorded gun crime rose sharply in both areas: by 23% in Southwark in the year ending August 2026 compared with the previous year, and by 22% in Lambeth.

The Met also recorded 14 lethal barrel discharges — incidents in which a gun is actually fired — across the two boroughs, compared with seven in the previous financial year. Knife crime shows a similar trend, with Lambeth reporting a 9% increase in knife injuries between April and August this year compared with the same months in 2025. Detectives say they cannot be certain what is driving the increase, but they have stepped up enforcement in response.

One case highlighted by the officers is the killing of 25-year-old bus driver Auguste-Marie Bile-aka Amoa, who was shot dead on Willington Road in Clapham on 10 August. Flowers and candles were left at the spot, and as he drove through the area, El Issaoui pointed out roadside memorials to several other young people who have died in violence. Ticehurst said the shooting took place in early evening, when people were inside a nearby pub and on the high street, adding that many witnesses saw what happened and that it came as a profound shock.

Detectives investigating Mr Bile-aka Amoa's death said they need the local community to help them find answers. A 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder after attending hospital with a gunshot wound, but has since been released with no further action. The officers stressed during the visit that they cannot rely on policing alone, and that they need residents to come forward with information about gun and gang violence in their neighbourhoods.

Police operations over the summer have included plain-clothes officers and firearms patrol units hunting for people suspected of carrying weapons and supplying drugs. Officers said those sweeps have produced more than 700 arrests, the seizure of more than 40 weapons, and recoveries of Class A drugs. The scale of the operation reflects how embedded the criminal networks have become, with officers saying several named groups operate across the boroughs.

El Issaoui described the local geography as a patchwork of long-standing groups, some of which have existed for decades but have been "re-branded" as a new generation overtakes the old. He cited the ABM group — short for All About Money — as the local outfit in the area, and said it is currently rivals with a group operating barely two minutes away near Wandsworth Road, known as O-Tray. Because so many groups sit in close proximity to one another, disputes escalate quickly and spill onto public streets. He described the pattern as tit-for-tat retaliation that too often catches innocent bystanders who have no connection to gang crime.

Social media has intensified the dynamic, according to Elissaoui. Officers said they routinely see gangs entering rivals' territory and livestreaming it, effectively announcing their presence and daring a response. That performative element, layered on top of poverty, exclusion and easy access to cash, is why officers argue the problem cannot be solved by arrests alone — and why the recruitment of children, rather than the movement of adult firearms, is the part of the crisis they are most worried about.