Gillingham Street Angels provides food and clothing to thousands in the area every month. But now the organisation says its helpers need to wear body cams to keep them safe.
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00:00Hundreds of pounds on body cameras, a thousand on CCTV.
00:05That is what Neil Charlick, who runs the Gillingham Street Angels, says he has to spend on security
00:12equipment for his food bank.
00:15It follows an alleged attack on one of his 60 year old delivery drivers yesterday afternoon.
00:22These guys volunteer, we feed a lot of people in this community, they shouldn't have to
00:26deal with that kind of thing.
00:27It's an increasing problem, it's not just a one off occurrence, the verbal abuse, the
00:32abuse that goes on towards food banks and other organisations that are there to help
00:36is appalling.
00:37Those body cameras are £200 a piece to make sure that they feel, my volunteers feel a
00:42bit of safety, that when something does go wrong, one of the volunteers has got leukaemia,
00:46she's been spat in her face, people are just rude, there's some rude people out there,
00:50and it's not a great deal.
00:51We can't afford to have security guards at a food bank that's trying to help people,
00:55we're trying to give stuff out for free, it's bad that we should be even looking at
00:58that kind of thing.
00:59Kent Police confirmed they were called to Skinner Street around 1.30 on Monday, following
01:05a report that a man had been assaulted by a delivery driver, but after speaking to the
01:11informant determined that no offences were deemed to have been committed.
01:17It's not just the Gillingham Street Angels that say they have seen their volunteers on
01:22the receiving end of abuse.
01:25It's probably more so, not because we've seen more of an increase, but maybe of that
01:30sort of incidents happening.
01:32I think it's more because the sheer number of people are increasing, which in turn, classic
01:38example of today, you know, one of our clients said, oh, why do I get less than that person?
01:43And it's purely because, you know, we can't necessarily, we have a different system for
01:48different if you're a family or single people, but you can't, because of the sheer number
01:52of volumes, we can't give everybody exactly the same amount because we just wouldn't be
01:56able to, you know, give those donations out to everybody.
02:00With demand continuing across the county, the threat of abuse continues to be a real
02:07concern for Kent's voluntary sector.
02:10Oliver Leedser-Sacks for KMTV in Medway.