‘We will kill you and burn your house’: Council staff under attack from High Street gangs

A couple of months later, Mandy’s new car – parked outside her house – was rammed off the road in the early hours by an uninsured car connected to one of the defendants.

“It was over £10,000 of damage. It was a brand new car. We only had it for about three weeks,” she says.

Just after her car had been repaired, it was rammed again in the middle of the night, and had to be written off. It had been hit by another car insured by one of the defendants, she says.

After two years of constant intimidation, the pressure became too much for Mandy and her husband. They decided to sell their house and move.

“This was supposed to be my forever home and we’ve just finished renovating it after 10 years,” she says.

On police advice, the couple used three different removal companies and staggered their move to make sure the criminals did not find out her new address.

“I emigrated from South Africa to get away from that fear in your own home,” she tells us.

The defendants who intimidated her were jailed for money laundering, illicit tobacco offences and fraud, she adds.

Their crimes, and Mandy’s personal story, add another layer to the picture we have been piecing together over the past year about the scale of criminality on UK High Streets.

Earlier this month, we revealed how cocaine and cannabis are being sold over the counter in shops in West Midlands’ towns – which led to the prime minister pledging more neighbourhood police officers.

In Greater London, a female Trading Standards apprentice, who asked to remain anonymous, told us she had no idea her role would be so dangerous.

“The second I step into the High Street all eyes are on me – there’s four or five guys that will suddenly start moving, texting people,” she says.