I thought I'd have a rant.
For over a year I've had trouble with a group of local children. They come at night and ring the doorbell, then hammer on windows, I've had maggots under the door during the day, and they hatch into flies filling the house, I've had insulting notices glued to the door, and to the back of the car, one shouts abuse when I drive past, and so on. I've tried chasing them, with a torch, but when I've found them, there's nothing I can do. They know they are untouchable. The police can't do anything without names and/or addreses.
So, just over a week ago I tried to photograph one of them, in broad daylight, in a public place, taking care not to act like a 'kiddy fiddler'. I had the sister of one shouting threats at me "you ****ing pervert, I'll ****ing punch you if you don't give me that camera". I had the brother of the same brat drive into me a few times (not serious) then restrain me by the wrist, After 5 minutes struggling, he placed his free arm around my neck for 5 minutes. Eventually I struggled free, taking care not to use any abusive or threatening language ("let me go" was all I said) and not using any physical violence. Well, they called the police to charge me with photographing a child. One child who has in the past harassed me cycles up to me and says "You were photographing a child, she's fifteen, the police are coming." Except it's not a crime. The police civilian worker, and a local copper confirmed I was acting reasonably, and legally, and they understood the reasons. The person who assaulted me broke my £200 watch, and I have a bruised wrist and neck. But the police will not charge him, or even his sister for threatening to punch me (which is assault). They say the courts will let them off for doing no more than thinking they were protecting their sister. Despite the fact that I explained clearly what I was doing and why. And a passing teacher said what I was doing was wrong. When I asked what I should do she said "contact the authorities". I had done so numerous times. So she then said "but they're only children" and told the children to call the police, and that is when I was assaulted. She saw me being assaulted and cared not a whit for my well being. She undoubtedly saw one person threatening to punch me. She'd not seen me be abusive (I wasn't) or use violence (I didn't). I despair of these bleeding heart liberals who I thought only existed in the media parodies.
In my view the police have been pretty good, supportive, and friendly. They are incredibly busy attending to often trivial calls, and they must act within the law. But the laws are absurd. In this case the police now know who the kids are, and they have been to their homes to caution them about their behaviour. With luck they will learn to behave, and not harass local people.
The day after my boss at work was abused by kids, and his car damaged. They just walked up to him and said "You can't ****ing touch me mate". On one occasion he grabbed the coat of a child who was kicking his house door. The police warned him he could have been charged with assault.
It's a crazy world. Most kids are well behaved, but the small minority of feral kids exploit laws which protect the aggressors not the victims.
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