Queensway residents left in the dark over serious incident

Rumoured stabbing on Masefield Close

By Natalie Bloomer

Residents at Masefield Close in the Queensway area of Wellingborough woke on Saturday morning to find a police presence on their street following an incident in the early hours.

Although rumours circulating locally suggest a man has been stabbed, NN Journal has been unable to confirm this with Northamptonshire Police. 

Many of the residents NN Journal spoke to over the weekend said that they’d been told that a stabbing had taken place.

“I’m just waiting for them [the police] to knock on my door and ask about it, I know they went next door yesterday. Everyone around here is saying it was another stabbing,” one said.

Another resident said they heard a commotion in the early hours of Saturday morning.

“It woke me up and when I looked outside there were a lot of police, I didn’t know what had happened but heard from neighbours later that somebody was stabbed. To be honest you hear about these incidents a lot now around here, it’s scary really.”

One said they’d been told a man had been injured and taken to hospital following a knife incident on the street.

“That’s what I was told but I haven’t seen anything online or on the news or anything. Lots of people are talking about it though.” 

Rev Ben Lewis from St Mark’s Church on the estate said he was told by one of his congregation who lives on the street that when he left for work at 4.30am on Saturday a police officer told him somebody had been stabbed. 

There has been a string of knife related incidents in Queensway recently. Last month a man was airlifted to hospital after being stabbed in the back and two 17 year-old boys are currently on trial accused of the murder of 16 year-old Dylan Holliday on the estate last August. Dylan was stabbed 13 times and was later pronounced dead in hospital.

His death sparked a response from the local community who came together to campaign against knife crime and highlight some of the issues faced by young people on the estate. 

Flowers left after the death of Dylan Holliday

On Sunday afternoon NN Journal contacted the police’s press office to verify the reports we had heard from Masefield Close. However, a recorded message said that reporters with urgent enquiries calling outside office hours should ring through to the control room. We did that and asked for the details of who we could speak to about the incident but were told there was no other number we could call. 

The same happened following the Queensway knife incident last month. On that occasion we tweeted about it and the head of communications at the force responded to say they do “24/7 on call.”

In May chief constable Nick Adderley set out the force’s priorities for the coming three years. On the issue of knife crime the police said:

“...serious violence includes knife crime where Northamptonshire Police has made significant inroads in the past year. A countywide campaign has helped to reduce the number of repeat offenders, huge hauls of bladed weapons have been recovered and frontline officers have led a wide range of proactive operations – such as Op Revive in Wellingborough – which have helped to push home the zero-tolerance approach to those arming themselves with knives.”