Warwickshire Police reject Somalia comparison as Nuneaton crime statistics released

In Nuneaton, a Viral Claim Meets the Reality of a Town Finding Its Footing

Nuneaton, the Warwickshire market town better known as the birthplace of novelist George Eliot, has been dragged into a national argument over crime and belonging after one man’s anguished appeal went viral: “The country is not safe. But my country, now, I’m safe. I want to go back.”

The speaker, 50-year-old former asylum seeker Yusuf Ali Hamud, told Sky News he has been urging the Home Office to send him back to Somalia. His assertion that Nuneaton is “more dangerous than Somalia” ricocheted across social media and talk radio in a matter of hours—part shock, part clickbait, all emotion. The police response was measured but firm: the claim is misleading, and targeted work is underway to make the town feel safer.

What the numbers actually say

According to police.uk data, 216 crimes were recorded in the Nuneaton Central area in June. Violent and sexual offenses made up the largest slice with 62 cases, followed by 47 incidents of anti-social behavior, 38 shoplifting offenses and 19 public-order incidents. April was the high-water mark so far this year, with 309 recorded crimes. Warwickshire Police acknowledge Nuneaton has long sat among the county’s higher-crime boroughs, but say direction of travel matters—and that year-on-year comparisons show progress.

The granular patterns are those that will feel familiar across Britain’s town centers: persistent shoplifting that saps already-thin margins for independent traders, harassment on the edges of pub closing time, and repeat offenders who can make the same few streets feel unsafe, even if the rest of town is relatively quiet. Those patterns rarely set the national agenda. But a blunt statement like “more dangerous than Somalia” does.

Policing the perception gap

Warwickshire Police pushed back publicly, highlighting a series of measures designed to tackle precisely the kinds of issues that shape everyday safety. Inspector Ryan Walker pointed to a dedicated town-center foot patrol officer, PC Seb Lock, who has already made arrests, as well as stepped-up neighborhood patrols and plainclothes operations run by the Business Crime Team. Officers have also deployed a Public Space Protection Order in both town centers and secured a Criminal Behaviour Order against a repeat offender.

“We want all of our communities to feel that our town centre is a safe place to live and work,” Walker said. “That starts with a visible presence, but also with tools that allow us to tackle persistent offenders directly.”

Beyond the uniformed response, the Nuneaton Business Improvement District has funded additional private security patrols after traders raised concerns. Police say they are walking the streets with councillors and the local MP, in part to hear what residents say doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet: who’s hanging around where, at what time, and how that changes the mood of the place.

Why the Somalia comparison resonates—and misleads

Comparisons between a British town and a country emerging from decades of conflict are designed to shock. They flatten nuance. Somalia, like any nation, holds multiple realities at once. There are parts of the country where security has improved in fits and starts, where diaspora families have returned to build businesses, and where everyday life hums. There are other areas where extremist violence and instability still dictate the rhythm of the day. Safety is uneven and deeply local—there, as here.

And that is the heart of the matter in Nuneaton. Perception lives on a single street corner, at the bus stop after dark, in the moment someone follows a woman across a car park or shouts at a shopkeeper who won’t sell spirits after hours. Social media has a way of magnifying those moments until they seem to describe the whole. A single video from a single alley can stand in for a whole town if the narrative is sticky enough.

A national conversation in a local shopfront

If you’ve wandered through Britain’s high streets in the past few years—post-pandemic, amid a grinding cost-of-living crisis—you’ll recognize the backdrop. Shoplifting complaints are up in many towns; anti-social behavior draws headlines. The government’s rhetoric on law and order has sharpened. In response, local authorities have leaned on Public Space Protection Orders, Business Improvement Districts have hired private patrols, and police have tried to be both visible and surgical—more foot patrols, more targeted orders against the small number of repeat offenders who drive a large share of nuisance and harm.

All of that is part of the Nuneaton picture. So, too, is immigration. When an asylum seeker says he feels less safe in a Midlands town than he would in Mogadishu, it collides with Britain’s relentless debate over who gets to stay and why. The Home Office would not comment on Hamud’s case specifically, noting only that foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes can be deported—either enforced or voluntary. But the collision is real: questions about safety and belonging in towns that have grown more diverse and, in some places, more economically fragile.

What safety feels like

There is always a tension between numbers and nerves. Statisticians will tell you crime has plateaued or is trending down. Residents may still feel the streets fray at the edges. Which is right? In journalism, the answer is usually both. Safety is data—and it is the walk home after the last train. It’s the greeting at a shop door and the absence of catcalls after dark. It’s a PC who knows the names of the kids outside the chip shop and the authority to move them along when talk turns to trouble.

Nuneaton’s police are banking on presence and precision: officers on the beat, PSPOs in place, Criminal Behaviour Orders for chronic offenders. The BID’s private patrols add another layer, and the walkabouts with councillors and the local MP are a nod to accountability. The test for all of it is simple but stubborn: does a resident feel safer than she did last month? Does a shopkeeper report fewer incidents? Do people linger downtown, or do they hurry past?

What to watch next

• Year-on-year trends: If April was a spike and June a reduction, does the line keep bending down by autumn?
• Enforcement outcomes: Do PSPOs and CBOs reduce repeat offending, or just displace it to nearby streets?
• Retail resilience: Are shoplifting reports easing for small businesses that have hired extra security or revised floor layouts?
• Community trust: Are more people reporting incidents, and do they feel heard when they do?
• Communication: Do police close the loop with residents, explaining not only what happened but what changed because of it?

Hamud’s words captured attention because they were raw and unvarnished. But they need not define Nuneaton. Towns are not only their worst moments. They are also the Saturday market, the library queue, the quiet knowledge that most neighbors want the same thing: a place that feels as safe as it is. That’s not a slogan; it’s a daily practice, visible in small choices and, yes, in the patient, sometimes unglamorous work of policing.

Nuneaton is not more dangerous than Somalia. It is a place, like so many across the UK, trying to reconcile data with lived experience, to steady its center and draw people in. The measure of success won’t be a viral video. It will be whether, six months from now, residents talk about their town in the past tense of worry—or the present tense of pride.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.