Elephant topiary at centre of drug dealing row destroyed in car crash

The topiary elephants were flattened in a car crash

Topiary elephants at the centre of a row over whether they should be chopped down have been badly damaged in a car crash.

The four elephants in Romilly Road, Finsbury Park, have become a local tourist attraction but have also been blamed for masking drug dealing in the street — leading to a neighbour calling for them to be destroyed.

Last night a car ploughed through the garden wall, hitting two of the elephants.

Police are not treating the crash as suspicious and the wrecked vehicle has now been removed.

Architect Tim Bushe, who first shaped the hedges seven years ago, said: “I can’t believe this has happened after everything else. You really couldn’t make it up.”

Although the hedge elephants have been a hit on Instagram one neighbour has demanded they be removed because of the risk to his family from criminals. He was only foiled in his attempt to destroy them after neighbours intervened. He declined to speak to the Standard.

In July last year police raided the downstairs flat of the house where they found a drugs den with “smoke crack worship satan” scrawled on a wall, above. A closure order was secured for the flat managed by Partners for Improvement in Islington (PFI).

Mr Bushe, 64, told the Islington Gazette: “If you had someone occupying and looking after the flat downstairs it wouldn’t be happening.

"PFI needs to get someone in and make sure it’s not a crack dealer.”

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