How I risked my life to nail the drug dealer next door while police failed to answer my pleas: Father's amazing tale of courage

By Kathryn Knight
Last updated at 4:25 PM on 12th June 2010
Charlie Skinner has always been the sort of man to step in when people are behaving badly. The kind who will remonstrate with litterbugs, or who intervenes when a hapless tourist is being taken advantage of by a slick London con artist.
He’s done both in recent months, each time earning himself a foul-mouthed tirade for his trouble, and a certain amount of eye-rolling from his wife, Sian.
Married to him for 15 years, she’s had time to get used to her husband’s ‘get stuck in’ attitude, even though she has, on occasions, worried that it will land him in hot water.
'I acted without thinking': Charlie Skinner with wife Sian and children Florence, Maisie and Teddy
'I acted without thinking': Charlie Skinner with wife Sian and children Florence, Maisie and Teddy
And in March this year, that’s exactly what happened. On this occasion, Mr Skinner decided to try to tackle a problem that was rather closer to home, in fact, right on the doorstep of his beautiful South London townhouse.
The family’s neighbour was a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from China, called Xiao-Po He. He had for weeks been openly selling Class A drugs to a stream of customers coming in and out of his front door.
A call to the police from a worried Mr Skinner resulted only in the instruction to ‘keep a log’ and, when it became clear that nothing would be done anytime soon, 47-year-old Mr Skinner chose to take the law into his own hands.
‘I have three children, who are 13, 11 and eight — if the police weren’t going to do anything to protect them from this, I knew I had no choice,’ he explains. So, posing as a customer to gain access to the next- door house, he confronted his neighbour, fighting off two of his henchmen before chasing him down the street and making a citizen’s arrest.
Such was the volume of the deadly drug crystal meth in Po He’s possession that this week he was jailed for six years after a hearing in which Mr Skinner’s behaviour won praise from the trial judge.
His story is, on one level, a heroic tale. But it is also a depressing one. Many readers will wonder why it took a mild-mannered father of three to put such a man behind bars — especially when the local police station is only a stone’s throw away.
Moreover, Mr Skinner was horrified to discover after the trial that Po He was already on bail for previous drugs offences. Despite this, he was still able to set up shop next door and start dealing drugs all over again.
‘I didn’t really think about what I was doing, I just got on with it. But it seems ironic that with a police station just a few minutes’ walk away, it took me — his neighbour — to actually intervene. You have to ask yourself what their priorities are.’ 
His is a lament that will strike a chord with thousands of despairing parents who have fought tooth and nail to keep their children away from the scourge of drugs — one which is no respecter of class or wealth.
‘I understand the police have a difficult job and they are bound by certain rules,’ he says. ‘But when you have kids and you live with the reality of a drug dealer next door it’s a different kettle of fish.
‘I didn’t really think about what I was doing, I just got on with it. But it seems ironic that with a police station just a few minutes’ walk away, it took me — his neighbour — to actually intervene. You have to ask yourself what their priorities are.’
How many people will agree with the sentiment that the police seem to have plenty of resources at their disposal when it comes to traffic offences and speeding fines, yet are rather less forthcoming when it comes to dealing with neighbourhood crime.
What makes Mr Skinner’s trenchant views so interesting is that he is no dyed in the wool Right-winger, or high-minded Nimby.
An articulate, open-minded and prosperous property developer, Charlie Skinner and his wife, a senior legal adviser at a London court, returned to the capital four years ago from Paris, and deliberately chose to settle in Kennington, an area south of the river known as something of a cultural melting pot.
Their smart £700,000 townhouse lies on a busy main road and, like many other areas of the capital, is flanked by both smart period residences and more run-down flats and council estates.
‘We actually both liked the fact that it was really diverse, but we’d also done our research and knew it was pretty safe because it has two police stations and a few MPs living there,’ he says.
While the neighbouring property on one side was a house, the other was, like many in the area, divided into flats, and initially, Mr Skinner says, the family were on friendly nodding terms with the inhabitant of the ground floor.
But when he left the property at the end of last year to return to the United States, they were immediately wary of his successor.
Home: The family's Kensington terrace was overrun by the drug dealer's customers, arriving to score their hit at all hours of the day and night
Home: The family's Kensington terrace was overrun by the drug dealer's customers, arriving to score their hit at all hours of the day and night
‘I didn’t take much notice of him at first because he seemed to keep himself to himself, but I did notice that he kept funny hours. He also seemed to travel everywhere by cab, which was at odds with his attire, which was pretty grungy.’
As we now know, Po He never actually inhabited the property, but instead rented it for use as his ‘ business premises’. Mr Skinner wasn’t to know this, of course, although by February he couldn’t help but notice the constant stream of visitors who, oddly, never rang the doorbell but always made a call on their mobile every time they reached the front door.
‘As I work from home quite a lot, I saw all the comings and going, and there were an awful lot of them. There were dozens of people calling every day, most of them young and pretty unsavoury looking. I soon had a good idea of what was going on.’
Weekends were even worse.
‘I am not exaggerating when I say there were literally hundreds of people coming and going at all hours. No sooner had one left than another was coming in or drawing up outside. Often they’d pass each other on the path.
‘It was unsettling, particularly with having three children who I was very mindful of protecting.’
After several weekends like this, by late February Mr Skinner had had enough. ‘The sheer volume of people was getting to me, then on this occasion three quite dodgy-looking blokes pulled up in a van before one went in next door then came back with a package which they sat examining.
‘Something inside me thought “this can’t go on”, so I asked my wife to call the police while I kept an eye on them,’ he recalls. Sian Skinner telephoned the local station, Walworth, and she spoke to a switchboard operator.
‘I was asked whether I had seen any open trading of drugs, and when I said I hadn’t, the woman told me that the best thing we could do was keep a log of the comings and goings,’ she says.
‘When I said there was no other explanation for what was happening, the woman said she was sure we were right but without evidence they couldn’t get a warrant, and without a warrant they couldn’t get in. So there was nothing more they could do at this point.’
In other words, instead of sending a local bobby to knock on the door, the police chose to play things by the book. As Sian’s husband points out, the notion of keeping a log seemed laughable.
‘There were so many people coming and going I could have filled an entire notebook within a couple of hours — and if the police had made the 15-minute walk or two-minute drive here they would have been able to see that for themselves.’
As it was, the couple could only watch helplessly as another fortnight passed in which Po He continued to ply his trade.
‘We managed to shield the kids from it — they don’t really play out at the front but, obviously, it’s a concern because of the kind of people who were coming to the area,’ recalls Mr Skinner.
‘The other guy then fled out the front door. It suddenly flitted through my mind that one of them might have had a weapon, and I realised that maybe I was in over my head, so I ran back home and shouted at Sian to call the police.’ 
By March 13, another Saturday on which a constant stream of customers had come to buy their illegal fix, he decided to try an experiment.
‘I stood outside the flat and pretended to be on my mobile phone. Each time someone came out, I made out I was lost and asked how to get to a street that was just around the corner. each time, they just looked blank, which meant they were definitely not local. For me it was another tick in the box showing that something dodgy was going on.’
In just 20 minutes, Mr Skinner had spoken to more than a dozen ‘visitors’ and, by now only too aware that calling the police would lead nowhere, it was at this point that he decided to take the law into his own hands.
‘I just felt furious that this was happening right on my doorstep. Looking back, I suppose I acted without thinking, but I just wanted to do something, and when I saw two guys coming out the door I took the opportunity to go in.’
Once inside the hallway, however, Mr Skinner realised that the two previous customers had returned and were now standing by the front door. And suddenly, what had been a cautious intervention erupted into terrifying violence.
‘They were white, thirty-something and rough-looking. One of them said “what do you want?” before coming right for me with his fists raised. I knew I had to put up a fight, so I landed a punch which sent him to the ground.
‘The other guy then fled out the front door. It suddenly flitted through my mind that one of them might have had a weapon, and I realised that maybe I was in over my head, so I ran back home and shouted at Sian to call the police.’
Glancing back out the window, however, he saw that Po He was also making a run for it.
‘I’d obviously freaked him out, so was making a getaway with a friend.
‘I had adrenaline coursing through my veins by then, so I took off after him and chased him down the street before managing to pin him down on the ground where I held him in a headlock while his friend fled. I didn’t think, I just acted on instinct.’
Of course, choosing to chase Po He was a dangerous course which could all too easily have resulted in tragedy had he been armed.
At this point, however, a touch of farce entered the proceedings: the area had been colonised by a film crew shooting a TV advert, and, to passers-by, Mr Skinner’s frantic attempts to restrain his captive appeared to be part of the drama of filming.
‘I was trying to shout for people to give me a hand, but they obviously thought it was play-acting. It was tough because the guy was obviously struggling and I wasn’t sure how long I could hold on to him.’
Citizen's arrest: Charlie held the drug dealer in a headlock while Sian called the police
Citizen's arrest: Charlie held the drug dealer in a headlock while Sian called the police
In fact, a local off-duty policeman spotted the contretemps and ran towards them, making an arrest and calling for back-up on his phone when he realised the gravity of the situation.
This time, the police arrived within minutes. In Po He’s pockets they found 3.6 grams of the highly addictive and dangerous drug crystal meth.
‘I said to the policemen that if they thought this was a lot, they needed to go to his flat because I had no doubt they’d find plenty more there.
‘At this point, the guy was shouting saying to me “have some respect”. I was incensed. How could a man trading in drugs even think of saying something like that?’
If Mr Skinner was relieved his neighbour had been apprehended, he was to be left angered by what he subsequently discovered: visited by a plain clothes officer the following day, he learned that Po He, who had another 4.48 grams of crystal meth in his flat when it was searched, was known to the police already.
‘The officer told me the guy was part of a Soho drug triad gang and had been arrested previously, but because he was pretty small beer they had kept him on the outside, as he put it. He was meant to be acting as some kind of informer, although he obviously hadn’t been telling them what he’d really been up to. It made me pretty angry.
‘I understand we don’t live in an ideal world and the police sometimes have to play difficult games, but they’re not the ones living with the reality of a drug dealer next door.’
Not just a drug dealer, but a drug dealer with form, too, as Mr Skinner discovered when he attended Inner London Crown Court this week. He was already on police bail after being caught in November last year with a stash of drugs worth £12,000, including crystal meth, cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy pills at another address in South London.
On this occasion, he was jailed for six years after admitting two counts of possession with intent to supply and two of possession of criminal property.
Judge Mark Bishop spoke witheringly of the ‘death and degradation’ in which he traded. His incarceration has come as a huge relief to Mr Skinner who, some would say, did the police’s job for them — not that the Metropolitan Police see it that way.
This week, a Met spokesman told the Mail that while he could not comment on this individual case they were bound by procedure.
‘We’re always grateful for intelligence people give us about criminal activity and we respond accordingly, while being mindful of balancing the fact we have limited resources spread very thinly.
‘If you report any suspicious behaviour relating to drug deals, it will be dealt with by detectives and more often than not it is in a covert way because of the nature of the work involved.
‘But intelligence is, of course, key to us and has led us to many arrests and many successful prosecutions.’
Even now, the words ring hollow to Mr Skinner.
‘I have sympathy for the difficulties the police face but, having lived in France for a few years and seen the zero tolerance policing they have over there, I can’t help feeling it’s a shame that they don’t have greater powers over here.’
How many who’ve seen their communities blighted by the drugs trade — all too often operating virtually unchecked from street corners to school gates — will find themselves in wholehearted agreement?