A community activist from Croydon who serves home-cooked meals from a shopping trolley to homeless people has been issued with a police warning saying his activities are causing antisocial behaviour. Ringo Vision claims to have served over 13,000 meals to those in need in Croydon town centre, and in doing so has attracted millions of viewers online for documenting the borough’s homelessness problem, which he says is ‘different’ from everywhere else he has seen.
The Croydon resident has become a local celebrity for pushing around his distinctive supermarket trolley, which acts as a mobile soup kitchen. However, after an incident at Surrey Street Market, the police have warned him about serving food in the town centre. While it doesn’t ban him from doing so, it warns him about any antisocial behaviour resulting from his activities, which has forced him to temporarily pull out of helping Croydon’s homeless.
Ringo told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Even if there is no ban, why am I being issued with a warning for feeding the homeless? I’m not a criminal, I’m a million miles away from that lifestyle.”. The police warning has caused outrage locally, with a petition launched calling for it to be rescinded. The warning was issued after Surrey Street Market became a focal point of his outreach work.
It is claimed that the unintended consequence was that incidents of antisocial behaviour began increasing around the market as people accompanying Ringo had got into altercations. Surrey Street Market stallholder Jose Joseph told the LDRS: “He brought friends, and they were the ones creating the problems a lot of the time. I told him he needed to control that because people respect him and watch him.”.
It is claimed there were incidents where people were fighting, and someone even briefly stopped the tram from passing. During one particular incident on January 8, several people reportedly gathered around Ringo’s trolley, and were said to be acting aggressively towards other marketgoers and traders. According to Ringo, things got ‘passionate’, and there was a fracas between himself, his followers and marketgoers. This resulted in police attending the market and questioning Ringo. Following this incident, the police issued him a seven-year Community Protection Notice Warning (CPNW).
CPNWs are intended to prevent individuals, businesses, or organisations aged 16 or over from engaging in antisocial behaviour that negatively impacts the community’s quality of life. This can include noise disturbances, unsightly rubbish on private property, and other forms of antisocial conduct. The Metropolitan Police told the LDRS the CPNW was ‘issued to provide a warning so that these issues, which had been negatively impacting the community and local businesses, could be addressed’. They added: “There had been multiple complaints of intimidating behaviour, which was distressing for those affected. The CPNW acts as a warning only, and not as a ban on behaviour which is not considered to be intimidating.”.
Ringo has served food to the homeless across the UK and plans to expand his activism to all dozens of UK cities. However, he feels Croydon’s problem is particularly concerning. “Croydon is different,” he told the LDRS. “I think it is because of how many people come across the UK and the world and land here. Some of the conditions they are sleeping in are bad, really bad. “They are usually out of sight so that most people won’t notice. I have seen people in the corners of car parks and in tiny gaps in alleyways in Waddon that most people won’t even know are there.”.
Because Croydon’s extensive homelessness problem is largely hidden from view, he claims there are a lot of people overdosing on drugs without anyone noticing. He added: “Until people go into Croydon and see what is happening, they won’t know how serious the situation is.”. Jamaican-born Ringo has been cooking for over 20 years, but it wasn’t until last year that he felt inspired to take action. “I woke up one Sunday morning with a new mission. I knew I needed to feed the homeless,” he recalls.
That’s when he began feeding Croydon’s homeless from his trolley, which he customised based on the handcarts used in rural Jamaica. His meals, including hearty stews and jerk chicken with rice and peas, quickly became a staple in the local community. Jose said, despite the recent issues: “He is still like family to us. He is doing some great things for the community, but some of the people he brought along attracted fights, it wasn’t the homeless people.
“I am not happy they warned him. Even my children have signed his petition because we don’t want him to stop what he is doing.”. On the day of the police warning, Ringo told the LDRS he was disappointed but not deterred. Instead of giving up, he headed straight to Crawley in West Sussex to camp with the homeless and provide food. Ringo insisted, ‘I’ll be back out’, and vowed to continue serving food to the Croydon community that has come to rely upon him.
