Medway charity speaks out after alleged attack on food bank volunteer

KentOnline / KMTV

Gillingham Street Angels provides food and clothing to thousands in the area every month. But now the organisation says its helpers need to wear body cams to keep them safe.

Transcript

00:00Hundreds of pounds on body cameras, a thousand on CCTV.

00:05That is what Neil Charlick, who runs the Gillingham Street Angels, says he has to spend on security

00:12equipment for his food bank.

00:15It follows an alleged attack on one of his 60 year old delivery drivers yesterday afternoon.

00:22These guys volunteer, we feed a lot of people in this community, they shouldn't have to

00:26deal with that kind of thing.

00:27It's an increasing problem, it's not just a one off occurrence, the verbal abuse, the

00:32abuse that goes on towards food banks and other organisations that are there to help

00:36is appalling.

00:37Those body cameras are £200 a piece to make sure that they feel, my volunteers feel a

00:42bit of safety, that when something does go wrong, one of the volunteers has got leukaemia,

00:46she's been spat in her face, people are just rude, there's some rude people out there,

00:50and it's not a great deal.

00:51We can't afford to have security guards at a food bank that's trying to help people,

00:55we're trying to give stuff out for free, it's bad that we should be even looking at

00:58that kind of thing.

00:59Kent Police confirmed they were called to Skinner Street around 1.30 on Monday, following

01:05a report that a man had been assaulted by a delivery driver, but after speaking to the

01:11informant determined that no offences were deemed to have been committed.

01:17It's not just the Gillingham Street Angels that say they have seen their volunteers on

01:22the receiving end of abuse.

01:25It's probably more so, not because we've seen more of an increase, but maybe of that

01:30sort of incidents happening.

01:32I think it's more because the sheer number of people are increasing, which in turn, classic

01:38example of today, you know, one of our clients said, oh, why do I get less than that person?

01:43And it's purely because, you know, we can't necessarily, we have a different system for

01:48different if you're a family or single people, but you can't, because of the sheer number

01:52of volumes, we can't give everybody exactly the same amount because we just wouldn't be

01:56able to, you know, give those donations out to everybody.

02:00With demand continuing across the county, the threat of abuse continues to be a real

02:07concern for Kent's voluntary sector.

02:10Oliver Leedser-Sacks for KMTV in Medway.

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