Sorry to say if I had my children with me, would I physically intervene? Absolutely no way. Their safety comes before heroics.
However I would hang around and check the person was OK afterwards , ring someone for them and tell the store.
pink x
Thankfully with the majority of people having mobile phones, it's a lot easier to report to the police without putting yourself or your kids in danger. I would certainly alert someone, either in the shop or by ringing 999 and stick around to help the poor man afterwards, maybe even make enough noise to scare the attackers off. I carry a personal attack alarm in my car because of my job and that would do the trick.
There's no shame in not intervening but there is in not helping the man after these thugs have run off
I think probably if ihad the kids then i would put them in the car look the doors and then do what i could to no i'm not 6ft or look hard but if some one made a big fuss and a lot of noise it would be enough to make them give up and run off . I'm no hero but i won't walk past if someone is in trouble.
I have stepped in.... but that was a knee-jerk reaction....just happened......and i wouldn't fault anyway who didn't because when i tell people about it people ask me if i was mad.. and looking back on it, it i had thought about it i probably wouldn't have.....at the time i didn't think of the danger aspect.......i just did it... if people though about would you potentially put yourself in danger... hell no!!!!
but i can take this a step further....
I was in the middle of leicester square in london., the person about 50 ft front of me collapsed me and one other person rushed over, then this person started having a fit...... the amount of people who just stepped over and did nothing really shocked me,
then i started screaming "does anyone have a mobile phone" again.....silence,
ran across to some of the shops pleading with them to use their phone so i could call for an ambulance......the amount of people who said i couldn't again shocked me....
it is sad that so many people just sat there and did nothing... and just looked at it as a form of entertainment.....
the shop owners got a proper mouthfull from the paramedics when they arrive... and again they just reacted as if they were non-plussed about it all.....
i went to the casulty with this person, and i know that i go thru all that again, but there are a certain amount of people that wouldn't put themselves out for anyone else.....
i wouldnt physically wade in, but i would call the police and make dam sure the muggers knew this.
if i had kids with me , id put them in the car or if old enough get them to go into the store and call for security.
i wouldnt hold anything against anyone for not intervening, as this can be down to reaction responce.
if i was being mugged? let the bag go ,its a bag.
slightly off track, but heard of a woman walking her dog and 2 youths ran past and mugged her of her carrier bag, was she bothered? no it only contained her dogs poo.
xx fem xx
I did once, but not sure if I would again. To cut a long story short I was 21 and I'd just moved to Manchester from Cambridge. I was in the Northern Quarter and walking behind a couple that were arguing, she was pushing a push-chair too.
The argument got more heated and she started hitting him with a golfing umbrella, he acted all meek and sorry until he got his chance to snatch it back at which point he hit her and she fell over. He pinned her down by the throat and started punching her full-force in her face.
It wasn't what I saw that I found so distressing it was the noise she was making and the sound of fist on bone.
I don't know when I started crying but I was and grabbed the back of hit coat and I begged him to stop. I screamed to people standing around that why weren't they helping? Luckily a police van drove around the corner and the saw what was happening and came to the rescue. All the while the child had also been watching from it's buggy.
The woman was taken to hospital, the guy arrested and after I gave the police my version of events I carried on making my way to rehearsals. My bandmates saw a was upset and asked me what was wrong, when I told them they replied "Oh we thought it was something serious"! I may have lead a more sheltered life than my Mancunian friends but to me that was very serious.
I was warned by my friends to never intervene as I may end up getting stabbed or worse. :shock:
The whole experience just made me really sad.
Yes I would and have intervened.....
Once... a smaller child was being bullied by two others..... I made a lot of noise and quoted a load of stuff at them and they ran off... leaving the smaller boy behind... so I helped him up and made sure he was ok.
The most dangerous situation I guess is intervening in a domestic violence incident late in the town one night.... standing up to someone 3 times my size... whilst he's threatening to kick my face in.... I didn't shout, lose my temper, or swear..... I reasoned with him.... and it worked. It might not work every time but this time it did.
I'm not especially brave but I do stand up for other people if I can........ I'd hate for people to just walk on by if I was in trouble... and just hope that someone would do the same for me if I needed help.
It's a sad fact of life that we have to consider our own personal safety first before helping others.... but it has to be thought of.
equi-princess x
Yes. And thats not because I have a bit of paper tucked away that says I should if I can, but because I act first & think later in a situation like that.
If I had children with me, no I wouldn't intervene, sorry but their safety is paramount.
If I was on my own, I don't really know these days to be honest. I know someone who tried to intervene with a group of lads jumping up and down on a lamp post and he got a severe beating for his trouble, the lads got done for the damage to the lamp post but not for the beating.. where's the justice?
If someone breaks into your home and you hurt them by retaliating... you can be prosecuted? again where's the justice?
No, I'm sorry but sometimes you have to judge what's in front of you, I would most probably call for help or call the police on my mobile, I certainly wouldn't ignore the situation.
I would of course help someone who was ill.
I suffer from epilepsy, and can totally relate to what Fabio said.
When I first started having fits, they are controlled now, and rarely happen, I never knew when I was gonna have one. And I was unfortunate enough to have one whilst shopping on my own in the town centre. It was 2 weeks before christmas, and a weekend, so you can only imagine how busy it was.
When I came round, there was 1 person helping me. Who despite the bad press they get, was a 15 year old boy. Everyone else was shopping around me, in a lot of cases stepping over me to get the DVD they must have.
The young lad in question was scared witless, not because of my fit, because he had to physically stop someone pinching my shopping and my purse. The store manager wouldnt even let the young lad use the phone to call an ambulance.
To this day I have not been back into this store, even when they sent me £50 of gift vouchers, after I sent a very long angry letter of complaint about the managers attitude. And yes, the young lad got a lovely letter of thanks, and a gift for being so good to me.
I think you are allowed to use reasonable force. Grabbing them around the neck to restrain them is different to hitting them around the head with a baseball bat.
Also stabbing somebody once in self defence is going to be viewed differently to stabbing your intruder in the back 15 times.
If your reaction was proportional to the perceived threat I think it would be unlikely that you would be prosecuted. If a burgular was armed with a gun or knife and you hit them with a baseball bat I suspect you would not be prosecuted.
If you lurk on the stairs with a shotgun and shoot them or pursue them out of the house and stab or beat them then you will be prosecuted.
If a proportionate response was not allowed for by the law all the previous contributors to this thread who have stepped in would have been prosecuted.
If you defended yourself against an attack you would be prosecuted.
There is a right to self defense.
I would jump in. I always think, what if it was me, my mum, dad, gran etc being attacked. I would want someone to try and help me/them. Jumping in doesn't need to involve you getting physical. Shout, draw attention to the situation, ask others that are witnessing to shout, tell them to call the police. You tend to find that once one person starts to defend the person being attacked, a few more will join in, there is safety in numbers!! And the attackers, like most bullies, don't actually want confrontation, they probably picked their victim because they deemed him to be weak. When faced with a group of people they normally run!!
Saying that though, you have to think twice about it, it's not worth losing your life over some powertools or whatever.
If the kids were with me I know I wouldn't become physically involved, although I would be taking mental notes on the attackers descriptions for later. Once the coast was clear I'd ensure that the victim was ok.
What would I do if i was on my own? I have no idea. I'm 5ft 4 and have no self defence training, that's something I HAVE to rectify. I'd like to say I'd do the heroic thing and save the victim, but I rather think I'd be doing the same thing as I would if I had my kids with me.
In the past I've phoned ambulances etc for others. I cannot let people in accidents or who have fallen just lie in the street. When my neighbours son had an accident on his motor bike I took charge of her phone answering and making calls for her, got her to the hospital and stayed with her as long as she needed me. OK a couple of hours later we were all driving home but she knew that she could call round and I'd sort things for her. Am I a good samaritan? Nope I'm just me and it's my nature not to let people go unassisted when they need help.
Yes i would and yes i have i have even followed criminals in my car relaying information to the police as to there where abouts, And with the self defence bit you need to read and qoute section 2 of the human rights act.
Without a doubt I would.. To what level would depend on the situation but I would get involved. I would never sleep knowing I ignored it! That poor fella could be anyone of us!
If we all took a stance in one way or another we would all benifit.
Mike xx
I once witnessed something which I knew at the time i should have done something about, but to do that would have put me at risk and outside the law due to the remote location and circumstances, so I decided discretion was the better part of valour
That was 6 yrs ago and i remember it often and now wish i had done something
"its beter to regret having done something than to regret not having done it"
I did do something, I called the police. If it was today I would have taken a picture before doing what I did next. As it was I just went to the aid of the policeman, pulling the guy off and putting him up against a car well the policeman continued his arrest.
What had happened was a fight in a pub. A policeman turned up , started to arrest a man outside the pub. One of his friends attempted to stop the arrest. That is when I came down the road.
Would I do it again? Yes.
and I have.
God this is a toughy. We would all like to think that we would do the right thing and come to someones aid. When something like that happens thou we will respond instinctively there will be little conscious decision making.
Being a have a go hero ( as the sun would say) can be very risky. You just dont know who you are dealing with. I used to be bullish about the idea of being mugged. I said to myself that Id never hand ove rmy stuff if threatened. But about 2 years ago a young man was stabbed in Birmingham Jewlery Quarter while being mugged. Sod it. Money, cards and possesions can be replaced. You cant.
Iagree about the have a go hero syndrome but surely if we all took a stance to some degree we all benifit.. I know as long as I'm fit and able i would without a doubt make a stance against these thugs to whatever degree I was able, no way would I just make it easy. Think back in time, its the apathy of people now thats allowing this to happen anyway.. No way in a million years would people just a few generations ago have sit back and allow a man to be mugged in front of them.. as such it rarely if ever happened through fear of a lynch mob! Give these little bullies a taste of there own medicine while we still can. No good relying on the police they have no power we all know that. We have power as people to change the way things have gone..
Ok rant over lol....
Mike xx
Id like to think that i would, but would i help if i had my children with me, running the risk that they could attack me or my children instead.
I am the human form of the proverbial 'rabbit in headlights'. If I see anyone in distress, it sends me into some sort of frozen shock, and takes quite a while for any response to kick in :( It's not a deliberate reaction, far from it .......... but it certainly isn't a just walk away and ignore it reaction either. I just can't seem to engage either brain or body to any good effect at all, really frustrating when going through all the "should've dones" afterwards 
But nope, freeze shock I'm stuck with 
