[Jeremy Vine confesses: ‘I am not proud of my inaction on that Tube train’] Posted on 02/05/2007 8:57:49 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
A warning before you read this. If you were the tousle-haired thirty-something who had seven bells knocked out of him on a Central Line Tube train outside Acton, west London, I am going to have to ask you to forgive me. My last memory of the event was your unsteady walk down that station platform. You were wiping the blood off your face; I was trying to wipe the whole thing from my mind.
[Jeremy Vine confesses: ‘I am not proud of my inaction on that Tube train’]
You and I were on the same Tube carriage. Sitting next to me was an attractive blonde. Opposite the woman was a strapping man in white T-shirt and jeans. You were standing a few feet away, and I think you must have seen what was happening the same instant I did: the man made contact with the girl.
It was only a touch on her knee at first. Since the knee was close to mine, I looked up from my book. The woman sank her face deeper into her magazine. I took in the details of his appearance as he leered at her. Fair hair prematurely thinning on top, clean shaven, jawline square as a shoebox, biceps like duck eggs.
"Hello darlin'," he was saying from the opposite seat. "Come on, love, give us a smile – beautiful girl like you, eh? Whazza matter?"
I frowned. An assertive frown was about as violent as things ever got in my home town of Cheam. The girl sank deeper into Marie Claire. "What's the matter, darling? You don't wan' any attention?" His hand was on her knee again.
And then salvation came in the form of East Acton station, the juddering halt, the rattle of the Tube doors pulling back, and – miracle – Neanderthal Man rising from his seat because it was his station. He dragged his knuckles off the train and the doors shut behind him. And you made your fatal mistake.
Once the doors were firmly closed, having seen the anxiety the female passenger had been caused, you did the public-spirited thing and flipped the yob a V-sign as he walked past the window. An appropriate end to the episode. Except the doors then drew open again.
The man jumped back into the Tube carriage and set about you with his fists. I remember hearing the crump of his knuckles into the side of your head, as well as the whimper of the London Underground guard who was hopping around in dismay at the end of the carriage (this was more than a decade ago, before they were replaced with cameras). Of the 30 people sitting around you, none came to your aid. You were on your knees, and the man was still pummelling. I grabbed my mobile to call the police – the station was above ground – but the battery died as I got through.
I had only one weapon. A 650-page biography of Oscar Wilde might have distracted the thug if inserted into his left ear with sufficient conviction. But while I weighed up the options, thinking too long and too hard, he was polishing off his brutal evening's work on your face. And then he was gone. With a swagger.
I have been thinking a lot about this incident recently, making a film for Panorama about when it's right to fight back. Why do we hesitate for so long; why are we super-cautious at the very moment when an instant response is needed? Why didn't I go in hard with my reading material and help a fellow citizen in distress?
In an uncharacteristic moment of joined-up thinking last year, the Home Office managed to leak one of its own initiatives. The slogan on the draftsman's board was: "Don't moan – take action – it's your street too." If the people around me on that Tube carriage were waiting for government permission to get stuck in, here, at last, they were getting it. But the leak caused a fuss from people who said ordinary citizens were in effect being asked to do their own policing – and what if some donned balaclavas and became vigilantes? The Home Office shelved the campaign.
When I met the minister, Tony McNulty, he was rigidly against personal intervention. If he saw an old woman being verbally abused in the street, I asked, what would he do?
"I think you should ring the police in the first instance," he said. "It may well be that simply shouting at them, blowing your horn or whatever, will deter them and they will go away."
So let's say the thug starts hitting her and the police haven't come. What do you do now?
"The same," the minister replied. "You must always get back to the police, try some distractive activities and whatever else."
The rest of the article is on the Telegraph website.
Mr. Vine did exactly what his government has ordered him to do.
Why didn't Mr. High-and-Mighty step in when the "gentleman" was feeling up his seatmate?
I've been on NYC subways all my life. If some guy was pulling this crap, he would be dealt with my others.
did exactly what most "police spokespersons" in these United States recommend.
Dial 911.
And die.
You got it wrong. The "feeler upper", when flipped off by a fellow rider for doing the "feeling", came back and beat up the fellow rider.
"A 650-page biography of Oscar Wilde"
LOL! Well there ya go!
The man who was beaten was not the molester. The one who did the beating was.
I still don't understand why the feeler-upper didn't get his ass handed to him, though.
I saw a guy get thrashed righteously on a Philly SEPTA train for that once. The whole car cheered.
My brother and I had a similar incident in a Metro station while visiting D.C. A guy was attempting to throw a woman off the platform into the tracks. My brother and I stepped in and stopped him and separated the two. We then got on a train just as security arrived.
A passenger who got on the train with us informed us that the guy had been beating up the woman because she had sold drugs to his 12 year old kid.
What a great day.
If Guy B would have stepped in right away, I think he might have gotten more support from those around him. As it was, he got beat up for flipping someone off, not for defending the girl. Different set of circumstances there.
Too true. Typically liberal. Do nothing, depend on the government. Our govt espouses that sort of nonsense as well.
650-page biography of Oscar Wilde? Okay, now we know why HE didn't react.......to the woman........
When you depend on the government for your livelihood, you depend on the government for you manhood, too. Poor blighter...
The only thing I could do would be to use a cell phone to call the police while taking pictures of all that I could.
Indeed, the only way this writer could come off as more of a sissy would be to add, "Oh, and I was wearing a flowery sundress."
Guy D (Laz) whips out his Glock Model 27 and orders Guy A to drop to Platform E or bullets F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M and O will penetrate skull P.
lol! Thanks for the smile!
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