These images capture the moment an addict lights up his crack pipe in the middle of the afternoon just six feet away from the front door of a family home.
Holding the lighter over the bowl he smokes the drugs before passing the pipe to one of his two friends, as the trio loiter in a stairwell seemingly unworried about potential repercussions from police or city council.
This footage was filmed less than six months ago. In other clips recorded recently by the same camera, users are seen wandering into the Norwich block of flats in threes or fours, making themselves comfortable on the stairs and swigging from beer cans as they pass their crack pipe. At other times they sleep under the stairs.
Doorbell-camera-catches-drug-taking-in-Norwich-stairwell
On more than one occasion they’ve been found passed out on the floor with needles sticking out of their arms.
This is the reality of daily life for Stacey Bramwell and her husband Mark*, both 32, who installed the camera on the door of their home in Ebenezer Place, off Sussex Street, where they have lived for nearly eight years.
Most recently it captured a user preparing to smoke crack just two weeks ago, until Mr Bramwell once again stepped into the hallway and escorted the addict off the premises.
Mrs Bramwell said: “I’ve walked in on these guys on the doorstep with needles in their arms.
“We can’t leave our house, because there are people coming in to smoke or shoot up, or there’s people pooing on the stairs.
“We kick these people out, we challenge them all the time, but it shouldn’t be up to us.
“We’re not asking for much, we just want to feel safe.”
In recent days this newspaper has reported how, in the last eighteen months, a police crackdown has smashed gang after gang of drug dealers importing cocaine and heroin from London.
Arrests have shot up to 2,000 in total, and by using drug dealers’ text message history as evidence, the time it takes police and the Crown Prosecution Service to secure a conviction has plummeted from up to three years, to around five months.
It comes as Norwich starts to receive special government funding of £5m over three years for Project Adder, a new multi-agency approach to drugs which will focus more on treating addicts, providing healthcare and housing and job training, in order to combat demand for drugs.
But for the Bramwells and their sons, aged 12 and eight, little has changed.
Mr Bramwell, a lifting engineer, said: “We’ve seen them here at 4am, at 10pm.
“My neighbour can get really scared in the night - she found one of them passed out in her home last year, I had to go in and physically haul the person out and onto the street.
“I’ve had to have conversations with my kids so early, when they shouldn’t have to be aware of all of that.
“This last year the police have been great, but the only thing that’s going to stop drug use on this block is security doors.
“I feel like the police are trying, but the police can only stop it out there, they can’t stop it in here.”
The couple say they have contacted the council hundreds of times.
Mrs Bramwell has sent 46 emails in the last six months alone, and has been awaiting a reply to her latest for four weeks.
She said: “Years and years go by, and nothing is done.
“They said they would clear up the area, they haven’t.
“They said they were going to put up a fence at the back, they haven’t.
“Before we got the camera, the council said ‘you’ve got no evidence’.
“So we installed the camera - now it’s ‘there’s not enough evidence’.
“But you can’t even upload videos on the portal they provide.
“If you don’t tell them anything further for two weeks they close the case, it’s really demoralising."
The couple have been pleading with the council to install security doors on their block - or even put a lock on the front door - to prevent it from becoming a destination for drug users.
Fob-controlled security doors have now been installed on around 400 properties across Norwich, and the council says it is working on a priority order for the new programme.
The priority order is set to be determined using information including complaints received.
Every block is due to have an assessment and the council warns that some addresses might not be suitable for door entry systems due to the design of the buildings, or responses from consultation with occupants.
Following consultation with residents and assessment of the buildings, the programme will start next year.
A spokesperson for Norwich City Council said: “The door entry systems within some of our council blocks are just one element of the work that needs to be carried out by many organisations when it comes to tackling this problem.
“To date we have already invested about £3.25 million through installing or upgrading door entry systems at about 400 blocks in Norwich and have a programme to install up to 200 more.
“This is a complex programme which involves each block having to be individually assessed for suitability as well as each resident consulted on the proposed work. But we remain committed to doing all we can to be part of the solution in addressing the problem.
“We continue to urge residents to report any incidents of drug abuse to the police.”
*Names have been changed.
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