West End’s quiet army of ‘Night Stars’ helping to keep revellers safe

By Adrian Zorzut, Local Democracy Reporter

In a stuffy central London church hall, a group of four pink-vested volunteers stand silently. It’s 11pm on a Friday night and outside waiting for them are crowds of rowdy and intoxicated revellers spilling onto Soho ’s narrow streets.

As these young volunteers plan their night, the hall fills with noise: taxi drivers beep their horns, loudspeakers blare music, and outside laughter and chatter mix into one indistinguishable and deafening noise. This is the moment Westminster City council’s Night Stars realise they have their job cut out for them.

Emmanuella Fadire hands out walkie-talkies and escorts the volunteers out of their hub at St Anne’s Church on Dean Street. As the council’s women’s safety and hate crime officer, she leads the Stars on most shifts, which run from 7pm to 4am.

“It’s really rewarding,” the 24-year-old told said. “You help a lot of people and make them feel safe. You also have a nice time out and get a lot of people thanking you.”

Emmanuella has helped many people in her six years as a volunteer, then employee. She has sheltered sex workers from pimps, escorted drugged-out patrons onto ambulances, helped tourists find accommodation, consoled people who have had their belongings stolen and protected women being followed by men they do not know.

Regardless of how tough the job gets – which regularly includes being yelled at – Emmanuella keeps coming back.

The Night Stars launched in March 2022 and work in partnership with the Met to assist anyone who becomes vulnerable due to intoxication get home safely. They patrol London’s partying hotspots, from Piccadilly to Charing Cross and Embankment to Chinatown.

They hand out water and sweets to help people sober up. They are always armed with vomit bags, alarms, drink spiking test kits and plastic drink covers. They also provide flip-flops.

Emmanuella said: “Flip-flops are the most popular product. We give them to people who have maybe lost their shoes or are just walking around barefoot. A lot of people are either happy or confused by them.

“And lollipops, I think it’s like a de-escalation thing because people don’t expect that response. When people are really riled up and we say, ‘here, have a lollipop’, people are like, ‘What? Ok.’”

On a typical night, Night Stars dished out water and candy to anyone appearing drunk. They helped a man with directions to Peckham and warned unsuspecting revellers with phones in their hands about thieves operating in the area. They also kept an eye on drunken lovers, getting ready to intervene in case things got out of hand.

Volunteers can engage with as many as 20 people a night, Emmanuella said, adding most of the action happens after midnight. Rebecca Damm, 45, a volunteer for six months, said: “After midnight, it gets different. It feels a bit darker, the energy.

“It feels a little more chaotic and when it gets chaotic, you feel people can become more vulnerable and then you get more people, perhaps, approaching vulnerable people. You have to monitor those.”

She said this includes young men “lurking” around Greek Street at closing time. Rebecca said: “We see a lot of young women come out of bars and lurkers start to walk over and befriend them. I haven’t seen a group of girls not handle themselves but you can see the lurkers waiting for that kick out.

“They approach and they invite them to a party, that kind of thing, which is probably not genuine.”

Daniel Khalid, 24, has been volunteering for five years and said he sees the same men loitering around. He said: “Greek street is a hotspot in Westminster. That’s where a lot of the problems tend to happen but things have been getting better.”

The team partners with St John’s Ambulance during pride and their hub turns into “casualty central”, according to Rebecca. Sometimes entire shifts can be spent helping people with directions or nursing those whose drinks have been spiked.

Westminster City council has reported an 11 per cent increase in sexual offences in the borough. Their survey found a third of women in the borough had had a personal experience of street harassment, and 45 per cent reported feeling unsafe at night.

Crime has also doubled in two years to on average 216 incidents a day. The majority of these were theft offences with many happening in the West End or St James’s at night.

The same research, which happens yearly, found Westminster City recorded more than 90,000 criminal offences, more than double the next highest borough.

Westminster City councillor Iman Less said: “Our main priority is to make sure you get home. We have a different role to the police. We have a different role to the ambulance. We have a different role to security or bar staff.”

Citing one troubled woman who felt she was being stalked, Cllr Less said: “You’ve got three people in hi-vis vests that are saying: ‘Hi, are you okay?’ Just that relief that she got was huge for her. And we waited for her while she got into an Uber.

“It doesn’t feel like a lot, a group of people waiting with you to get into an Uber, but in those few minutes that we took to wait with her, it could have been a prevention of something far, far worse.”

The Met Police has been contacted for comment.