TWO young men swagger down the high street, taking swigs from cans of lager amid the lunchtime rush.
Meanwhile, a stone’s throw from the main road, where midday drunks and druggies are a regular sight, the back lanes of Victorian terraces are strewn with rubbish.
This is Bensham, in Gateshead, where the crime rate is more than double that of England, and locals talk of “smack heads” moving in.
Healthy life expectancy in the area sits at just 56 for men, a whole five years lower than the national average of 61, while obesity levels are sky high, at 37 per cent.
In Gateshead as a whole, there were 667 alcohol related deaths and 307 drugs deaths in 2024 alone.
Residents of Bensham speak of a strong community spirit despite the hardship, but admit that its streets are fraying at the edges.
Peter Watson, a 56-year-old taxi driver, says it used to be the “place to be”, but the “council has moved all the smack heads in”.
He said: “I am in a cul-de-sac and down the back lane, there are people off their nuts.
“I have witnessed a lot of anti-social behaviour. Last week, there was one lass, naked at the bottom of my street.
“This lass, I went across to her. I asked her if she was OK, and she lashed out at me.
“The crime rate is high because of all the smack heads. If they weren’t here, it would be nice.
“Cars are getting smashed, windows put in.
“Having said that, I go away four or five times a year and I get home sick. I always want to come back. Where else am I going to go? It’s my home.
“We just need to get rid of the smack heads. They cause trouble for hard working people and they just get a slap on the wrists.”
The main high street, Coatsworth Road, is home to an array of charming bakeries and grocery stores, and is mainly quiet and peaceful.
But we are told the Victorian terraces which lead off from the high street are a magnet for drug users and alcoholics.
Gateshead’s drug scene has seen troubling developments this year, too, with The Sun recently revealing how “Russian roulette” pills are flooding its streets.
It came after Northumbria Police issued a warning when a suspected dangerous batch of drugs was believed to be behind the deaths of five people within 24 hours.
Horrified locals claimed that dangerous drugs were being cooked up in “jungles”, not labs, and slammed a local underworld of dealers – many of whom operate in Bensham.
In 2024, police seized more than 10,000 purple MDMA tablets, worth up to £53,000, from an address on Rawling Road in Bensham.
Graeme Hampton pleaded guilty to possessing the drugs with intent to supply on the basis he was “warehousing” them for others and was jailed for four and a half years.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, drug dealer Wayne Mooney was jailed after being caught with £30,000 in cash, with cocaine, cannabis and cannabis edibles found at his property on Saltwell Street.
‘Disgusting’ back lanes
The crime rate for the Lobley Hill and Bensham ward is 143 per 1000 people, compared to an average of 67 for England.
Heather, 64, was born in the area and has recently returned.
She said: “I was away for 50 years and it’s disgusting now. The amount of rubbish that’s left in the back lanes is awful.
“There’s lots of nationalities, living side by side, including Turks and Albanians.
“When I was a child, it was really clean and tidy. Coatsworth Road used to be elite. Now it’s absolute rubbish.
“Children had more respect. You had Sunday school for children, clubs. There’s nothing for them now.”
Ali Poor, 46, is an Iraqi Kurd who runs Ali’s Barber on Coatsworth Road.
He said: “I have been here since 2014 and I enjoy it.
“In my country, people do not drink outside, like they do here. They go indoors or somewhere quiet.
“Here, I see people drinking in the street quite a lot. Homeless people will ask me for 20p. We help sometimes, but I know that if I give them money, they will go and buy drink.”
Source of pride
Despite its spiking crime rates, Bensham remains a source of pride for the wider Gateshead community, in part due to a unique local demographic that has seen it dubbed ‘Little Jerusalem’.
With a population of around 10,000 Orthodox Jews, it is home to the Gateshead Talmudical College, which is one of the most prestigious Jewish learning centres in the world, and the largest in Europe.
However, sadly, this close-knit community also faces its own problems, with the recent Manchester synagogue attacks seeing security tightened in the area.
Colleges and schools having dedicated guards who stand watch in special boxes attached to the buildings, though Jewish residents tell us they mostly feel safe.
Avromi Segal, is a 34-year-old admin worker in a school, and has lived in the area for 11 years.
He said: “I came to Bensham to study, and now I have married a local girl from here.
“The Jewish community is close-knit, but we get on with the locals.
“We have internationally renowned Jewish colleges here. Everything you need is on campus, so you can focus on your studies. We have dorms, large dining halls. It’s mainly Talmudic studies.
“But drugs and alcohol are common. Seeing people holding a can, swigging it down, not being able to stand is a regular occurrence.
“It’s upsetting seeing drunk people in the kids parks, in the middle of the day.
“I have stopped a shoplifter before. Then, I saw him down the road trying to pinch something from a van.
“Lately, the police have ramped up their patrols, after what happened in Manchester.
“We remain vigilant. We have security at the schools. We have guards and patrols at the colleges and synagogues.
“To study here is as prestigious as studying at Oxford or Cambridge.”
Tackling the disorder
Chief Inspector Thomas Hart, Northumbria Police’s Gateshead Area Command, said: “As a Force, we take all reports of anti-social behaviour seriously, including those incidents which may involve the use of alcohol or illicit drugs.
“This is because we know the actions of a minority can have a significant detrimental impact on the wider community.
“We remain committed to tackling all types of disorder and we continue to co-ordinate our efforts with partners.
“As part of this activity, we regularly deploy officers to hotspot areas, issue dispersal notices, and make arrests where appropriate.
“As always, we’d like to thank the public for their continued support.
“By sharing concerns and reporting incidents to us allows our intelligence picture to grow so we can better shape our patrols and planning.
“I hope our communities know that we act on the information they share with us, and we’d ask they continue to be our eyes and ears.
“If you see something suspicious, please report it to us at the earliest opportunity and share as much detail as possible so we can take action.”
A spokesperson for Gateshead Council said: “We understand the issues that residents have raised in relation to the rubbish in Bensham, which is why we have weekly litter picks in this area and our fly-tipping crews pay regular visits alongside our environmental anti social behaviour and enforcement teams.
“We hope that by using this approach we are not just tidying up the rubbish but also giving support and advice to those who may be causing an issue and taking action where necessary.
“Over the last 2 years we have invested additional funding in our environmental services to try to improve issues such as this and help everyone to love where they live.”