Seeing the ugliest side of our city (From Oxford Mail)

Seeing the ugliest side of our city

6:10am Thursday 9th July 2009 in

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OUR reporter Chris Walker wanted to show off the beautiful side of this city when he invited five friends from Canada. But all these guests saw was the worst – after just an hour here.

The group of six were out in Little Clarendon Street for a meal when a man barged into them, pulled out a hammer and smashed a 25-year-old accountant around the back of the head.

Meanwhile, the good people in Quarry Hollow have spent two years improving their under-threat play area only for a vandal to strike 24 hours after it was reopened.

Both of these incidents are a shocking indictment on the darker side of Oxford and should leave us all asking today: Is this really the type of city we want to live in?

Oxford’s reputation around the world is for picturesque dreaming spires and while that is a romanticised tourist’s idyll, incidents like this hammer attack have no place in our city.

It is mindless thuggery you wouldn’t expect to suffer even in grim inner cities.

This young man came within a whisker of being seriously disabled or even killed.

No wonder these guests high-tailed it out of Oxford as soon as their friend was discharged.

And you could almost lay money on new play equipment being vandalised within a few hours of being unveiled.

There is a nasty underside to our city – and our country as a whole, which should concern us all.