Summer 1994
Camberwell. A small 20-something woman with long dark hair is ambling along a side street. Sixties’ tower blocks on one side; red brick low rise on the other. She has a brown and black bag slung over her shoulder. She is enjoying a bag of jelly tots as she goes and is weighed down by a heavy white plastic bag containing her council paperwork.
A tall 30-something male with dark hair and translucent pale skin hovers nearby. Suddenly he picks up speed, runs at the woman, grabs the bag off her shoulder. She rather lamely shouts: “Oh no!” and he, not very originally, cries out: “Oh yes!” A grubby old russet Ford fiesta appears from nowhere, he jumps into it and driver and thief speed off into the South London sunshine.
Well of course gentle reader, the woman was me. And what happened next? The Met were absolutely brilliant. A local shopkeeper raised the alarm (as they say), the police took a statement. I later identified the man at Brixton Police Station. He confessed to a series of muggings and got 7 years. It was an exemplary piece of policing, operating with lightning speed and with descriptions only. No CCTV. No witnesses. I bounced back very quickly. Partly I suppose because I was young; but mainly because the Police were so efficient. There was no pastoral care offered in those days. I wasn’t bothered, just relieved that the mugger would not do the same to anyone else for a while. What’s more. I felt safe.
You know what comes next don’t you?
Spring 2023
Eastleigh. A small woman in her 50s, greying bobbed dark hair stands at a major crossing outside the Holiday Inn. She wears a short yellow dress. Unbeknownst to any observer she has completed her leaflet round on the nearby roads and is going to treat herself to a little trip to the coffee shop opposite. The pollution is bad on that road and she holds up a corner of her long khaki cardigan over her nose as an ersatz facemask in a futile attempt to breathe in fewer diesel fumes. Chatting nearby at the crossing are a man in his 30s and a woman in her 20s in a black and white cardigan. Probably Polish from their conversation.
A massive new burgundy Alfa Romeo stops at the crossing 3 lanes of traffic away. The young male occupants spot the woman in her 50s and then they start. It takes a few seconds for her to twig they are singling her out. She ignores them but then looks up. They have what they want: “Stupid bitch. Stupid bitch. Stupid bitch. Stupid bitch”. It is almost the reverse of the safari park where the animals clamber all over the car. This pack clamber over one another within the car, opening all the windows to join in: “Stupid bitch”. They are putting real physicality and aggression into their cursing. A sea of mocking faces. They start holding their noses, then waving their hands in oh so amusing “you stink” gestures.
The Polish guy realizes what has happened and gives them the middle finger as the lights turns green and the car speeds off.
Of course, the woman at the crossing is me. Like most women I don’t normally report, but this time I had the number plate and felt the youths were very young indeed to have a car of that kind. At minimum they were hyped up; perhaps worse.
The police, when I eventually got through to them, were very clear. It didn’t matter that there was CCTV, that I had a reasonable description of the youths, a full registration number and witnesses. I was not deemed to be in a vulnerable group. There was no CCTV with sound. It was too much trouble to find the witnesses. It would be my word against the occupants of the car.
It was not a good use of police resources to follow it up.
This time I am deluged with (presumably expensive) pastoral care. A very nice person from Victim Support tells me about the work I can do on myself to move on and build up my confidence. I do not wish to work on myself. I do not need pastoral care or a counselling service. It is the perpetrators who need to be offered a series of self-reflection sessions at state expense. Not me. What’s more I don’t feel safe.
I thank the Met for the no nonsense way they helped me nearly 30 years ago. They seemed to know what policing was for. As for Hampshire Constabulary, thanks but no thanks for the offer of counselling. Actually, following up a crime might be better.
* Ruth Bright has been a councillor in Southwark and Parliamentary Candidate for Hampshire East
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15 Comments
So very sorry to hear this, Ruth. Hope you’re OK……. and how brave of the Polish guy.
Thanks David. I have raised the incident with my colleague who is Cabinet Member for Community Safety. But you shouldn’t have to take such an issue to a senior councillor when it would be so easy for the police to act with all the information that is available in this instance.
That second experience is really unpleasant. And a clear public order offence.
You WOULD need a witness though for a conviction; if you are an Eastleigh resident, might you recognise the Polish man?
Even without a witness – i.e. the police don’t want to analyse the CCTV footage and find the Polish man themselves – they ought to go round and warn at least the driver. That is intelligent community policing. It would make the perpetrators think twice before repeating such behaviour, especially if they are involved in other criminal activity.
I hope you will bounce back quickly.
You have summed it up perfectly Chris.
I was just doing what I have told younger women to do a dozen times. Report it. It might connect with something else.
Ruth, I am simply appalled – but not particularly surprised. On the one hand I despair of people’s behaviour and on the other I have the clear impression that the police are not minded to do their job properly.
I could provide a number of examples of much more minor crimes that simply become part and parcel of life in general. This last Saturday a dark haired woman driving a bright blue Skoda Fabia drove over the rear wheel of the single bicycle parked at our nearest rail station. I didn’t realise what she had done until she drove away. Given the will, not an impossible ask to locate her. But after 101 (nobody there) the police website is carefully geared to make it nigh on impossible to lodge details of such an event – or a more serious one. Result is that one gives up. Maybe I should try and email our P&C Commissioner and invite her to try doing it!
But this is how crime becomes almost acceptable. There is a clear perception that because the police don’t show that they care then these acts and behaviours don’t matter either.
Thank you Ruth.
Simple point. Clearly made.
We need people like the police to do their job – efficiently and effectively.
If Chief Constables want the police to be social workers and therapists, I would suggest they resign and make way for someone who wants to run a police force.
Ruth, as ever talks sense with sensitivity!
Not surprised about the police reaction today. The police have become too isolated from the public apart from on demonstrations! I dislike the whole extinction, anti oil crowd, but it is so obvious the police are too one or the other, heavy handed or social workers!
We need good sensible police and policing. True of everything we need in every sector anmd equally, lack!
Recently one of our students had their Apple Mac stolen. It had a tracker installed so the student was able to track the laptop to the door of the house where it was signalling. He asked a police officer to accompany him to the house. They refused. He then did a crime report and the case was closed for ‘lack of information’. This was because the CCTV in the pub wasn’t able to identify the suspect. I asked the student to update the crime report with the location of the device (which was still transmitting a day later) and they still closed the case. Unreal!!
Extraordinary, Anthony.
Social contract theory (at least what I can remember from my student seminars with Maurice Cranston, the biographer of John Locke no less) informs me that I have pooled my individual power to enforce justice with that of other citizens and we have vested those powers in the police and the legal system. This saves us from the “war of all against all”.
But for me, as a woman, it is looking pretty Hobbesian out there anyway. Misogynistic crime and sexual violence is largely decriminalised. Do we say that the social contract is broken? I am close to saying that it is.
In fact, misogynistic crime and sexual violence have never been effectively criminalised.
Many rapes occur without witnesses. Juries often have “reasonable doubts” that preclude a guilty verdict.
Perhaps, we should try non-witnessed rape offences under civil law. There it is a matter of probabilities, not over-coming ALL doubts. Many more rapists would be held to account; but the penalties would be financial and reputational. Some innocent men would also be penalised.
Chris – just saw a poster in Lambeth. “Ask twice is harassment” report to Lambeth Council on a special helpline. I think what happened to me was a crime. It is not harassment to ask someone out more than once.
Yes, public order offences like that you were the victim of in Eastleigh are a crime. My apologies if anything I’ve written has given any other impression.
The police don’t understand the serious psychological impact such abuse can have on a victim. Or I believe they would make more effort.
Rape is a very serious crime indeed; you are right to say however that certain sorts of rape are de facto decriminalised. This is very distressing and governments have failed to take radical measures to improve the situation.
A way forward might be for the state to set up a civil law fund to fund rape victims in private prosecutions. This would kick in if the CPS wouldn’t bring a prosecution, in those cases where in essence it comes down to “she said, he said,” and it’s very difficult to secure a guilty verdict beyond reasonable doubt.
We have to do much much better to protect women.
@ Chris Moore (belatedly). No misunderstanding at all Chris. Thank you so much and everyone else for your thoughtful contributions.
Police complaints confirmed to me this week that they do not even record, let alone investigate, hate crime against a female even when a misogynistic word is repeatedly used!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!