Hanging baskets can kill

[Martin H]

I read this story in the metro this morning and have been fretting about it all day.

Surely there's more to it than is being said?

Is the moral, don't push back if the neighbours pick on you? Or something else?

[veggiechicken]

That's appalling. What about the neighbour who reported him for taking photos in the first place - they are also guilty - if they hadn't been so malicious this wouldn't have happened.

[darcyvuqua]

What on earth has this country come to


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[Two_Sheds]

this is what happens when malicious, unintelligent people decide to take the law into their own hands.


The other day someone local on faceb00k reported that there was an old man "being dodgy" in the bushes near the kids' playpark. It was virtually a call to vigilantes to get out there and "do something" about this "dirty old man" who may have simply been gardening, picking up litter, walking his dog, or looking for something he dropped.

[snohare]

I remember once intervening in an altercation in my street, where two teenage boys were abusing a harassed, ineffectual-looking man in his forties.
It was mobbing behaviour, pure and simple - as mindless as crows attacking a seagull; exactly like one of those wildlife documentaries where the hyenas are chasing a big cat away from its kill. Every time he turned his back on one, the other was striking, kicking or throwing something at him; as cowardly behaviour as I have ever seen.
It turned out that they all lived in neighbouring tenements, and the lads were insistent that he was a "paedo" and should ......."f*** off". But when pressed, they gave no evidence, not even an anecdote, and when I took out my mobile and called the police to investigate their claims they vanished PDQ.
He was desperate not to involve the police, refused to make a complaint, and nothing further transpired (that I know of). To this day I don't know what the truth of the matter was.
I had no doubt that had there been four or more of them there, then his wellbeing if not his life would have been at serious risk from the stones and stick that they were using. The brakes were definitely off on their behaviour, until I shocked them into answering for their actions, and having to think how it seemed to others.
It was an illuminating insight for me into how some (and possibly many) human beings are, sometimes at least, so controlled by instincts as to merely be toilet-trained apes that can talk and clothe themselves.

[Mikey]

Not long ago the OH was caught in traffic and saw a young boy about 12-13 being beaten badly by 5 other boys, they had him on the floor and were repeatedly kicking him in the head. She got out of her car and broke it up telling the boys to clear off and leave him alone.
There was a group of mums on the other pavement who she asked if the boy could walk with them as she wasn't local and didn't want to leave him alone. They said they didn't know who he was and moved off. She made sure the other boys had gone before asking the lad if he needed assistance going home, he said no he only lived just down the road.
She got back into her car and watched him go, he only made it another 100 yards down the road before he was cornered by the gang again. She intervened a second time and told the boys to go home and leave it there, at which point the group of mothers from before started hurling abuse at her, taking photographs of her car, and saying they were calling the police. This distressed her quite a bit and she took the boy back to the school where he had come from to see the headmaster as she felt this was the safest place for him and her to be.
The police were called and it was all sorted out, but it has made her think twice about her intervention. She teaches in a struggling school so children don't frighten her easily, but it was the response of the other adults that really troubled her.

[Two_Sheds]

toilet-trained apes that can talk and clothe themselves.

mostly, kind-of, and after a fashion



Nice to see you back. I was thinking of you this week cos we watched some snow hares on the tellybox

[snohare]

mostly, kind-of, and after a fashion

Oh, I didn't realise we had acquaintances in common. Usually Primark or Matalan, isn't it...

Yes, the papparazzi are terrible up this way.