Cambridge Tesco shoppers 'ignored pensioner mugging

Unbelieveable.

A decorated war veteran said he was "appalled and terrified" when no-one came to his rescue as he was mugged in a Cambridgeshire supermarket car park.

Read here for the full story:

www.bbc.co.uk...

Pathetic yellow bellied fuxxxxg cowards. To walk on by while a pensioner is attacked in broad daylight.
This man put himself in harms way to protect others and this is how he is rewarded? Karma my arse.

The locals should have rallied together and kicked seven shades of shxt out of the attackers.

It pains me the more i see cases of "Bystander effect"

The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present. The probability of help has often appeared to be inversely related to the number of bystanders; in other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. The mere presence of other bystanders greatly decreases intervention. In general, this is believed to happen because as the number of bystanders increases, any given bystander is less likely to notice the situation, interpret the incident as a problem, and less likely to assume responsibility for taking action.[

Link

It takes one person to make the move in a lot of the cases. I wish there were more of them out there.

I would like to think i am of the personality that would jump in and intervene and pronounce judgement on the pathetic wood be robbers with my fists.

double post.

reply to post by MDDoxs
Me too.
No second line.

The problem is there is a certain kind of mindset in this society that is not just the bystander effect.

That mindset goes like this: "You should not defend yourself and you should let the law defend you, and if you don't you're to be punished".

This is what enables this kind of behavior. Because if these people do anything to help, they could get into a lot of trouble, thanks to this kind of mindset.

I don't understand it even though I've heard the reasons for it.

But essentially there's a large number of people in society who thinks that you should not defend yourself because it's only stuff or you could hurt somebody else.

To which I say hogwash.

And regardless of what the law says or what society says, if you're going to get in trouble no matter what, you might as well defend yourself anyway, anyway you can.

I'd have helped the ol' fella out. It wouldn't be the first time.

Too bad he didn't have a pistol on him...

reply to post by EvilSadamClone
Here,here. I agree with your stance 100 percent. In this case, stuff the law, I am wading in and defending this fine old gentleman.

Originally posted by subject x
I'd have helped the ol' fella out. It wouldn't be the first time.

Same here.

Last time i stepped in, two guys were having a go at a pensioner on my local train station, they were drunk and weren't going to back off, but i made it clear that they weren't going to go away without hurting bad lol.

Funny thing was, the old guy i was trying to help was up for a scrap with them, he was a prison chaplain of 40 years who had seen a lot worse than these two idiots lol. The drunks slunk off and i stayed with the guy until his train came....we ended up having a nice long chat putting the world to rights.

CX.

reply to post by TheLoneArcher
It wasn't as straightforward as the BBC article describes.

Of the two attackers, the male stood behind the man and gestured that he was old and senile. A woman went to intervene and was put off by the female mugger stroking the victim's hand whilst the male mugger stood behind making out the guy was someone they knew.

This put her off from taking it further and any undecided members of the public would hit the bystander-apathy zone hard and fast.

How do I know? He was interviewed on BBC 5Live about an hour ago.

reply to post by Kandinsky

I hear you, but it is that apathy zone that enrages me. This is why the world is in the state it is in now, apathy.

reply to post by TheLoneArcher

I hear you, but it is that apathy zone that enrages me. This is why the world is in the state it is in now, apathy.

It's probably worse than that.

More like...

Apathy>>Extremism

The media keeps focusing on one end or the other and all that stuff in the 'excluded middle' isn't getting the attention.

reply to post by Kandinsky


That would have put anyone intervening into a difficult position...

Do you press on and help the guy out, but later get arrested as it turns out he was a bit batty and was with his carers? Tough call..

I can only say if that was me, I would have insisted they remain were they were while the Police were called to verify it. This should have been enough to scare them off and if not, the Fuzz would soon get to the bottom of it and they'd be daft to hang around... I feel sorry for the old dude, but at least the bank are refunding his money so he's no worse off financially.

I've been mugged myself a few times on a busy canal walkway in Reading while people just idled by, no one intervened despite me calling out... The second time it happened to me, however, I threw one into the canal and then a passer by tried to stop me legging it while he called the Police on me! I didn't hang around to clear things up, knowing full well I'd probably get stitched for assault on the mugger....

That was 10 years ago during Labours hey day though when it was seen as "criminal" to defend yourself.. These days, we have a lot more leeway in decking someone who threatens you.. In fact, the Government is actually preparing legislation to protect people who defend themselves from prosecution.

Eh.

I got mugged outside a Bargain Booze a few years back. I broke one of my assailants arms, kicked a 2nd in the nuts so hard, he probably had to swallow them back down, before the other 2 overpowered me.

When I woke up, in hospital, I was informed that they had accused me of attacking them, and the guys broken arm was pretty convincing evidence.

However, the CCTV evidence from Bargain Booze showed the real story. All 4 were jailed for varying terms. One of them decided to take the easy way out, while in jail.

But again, it was a busy friday evening, and not a single passer-by tried to assist, apparently it wasn't until a passing police car saw an altercation (by which time I was unconcious, on the floor, getting a good kicking), that anyone intervened..

This country is broken, sad to say.

reply to post by stumason
Yeah....after hearing the interview, I tried to imagine how I'd respond in that very same situation. The two muggers are 90% likely to be bag-head addicts and would have *that look* about them. I say this because mugging an old man in daylight on a busy Tesco car-park is the high risk/low reward type of desperation seen by smack-heads. That alone would lead me to jump in and get involved.

On the bright side, the common or garden bag-rat tend to be very well-known to police and fellow addicts are notoriously *grassy.* If the cctv has any quality, they'll be recognised (or grassed) quickly. Two addicts with £700 gets noticed fast by their mates and dealers and two decks of 20 can be incentive for 'helping police with enquiries.'

Originally posted by stumason

I can only say if that was me, I would have insisted they remain were they were while the Police were called to verify it.

You are right Stu, it is a difficult call, not always as easy as just jumping in. Your comment above is a good way of dealing with it, i did it last month in Southampton. A security van was parked in the highstreet, driver sat in the drivers seat with the alarm blaring out "This van is under attack, please call the police". Everyone was just walking past, so i had a qick check back and front, looked clear enough so i knocked on the window and asked if he was alright. He said yes, but would/couldn't turn the alarm off, but didn't want to discuss the alarm.

I walked off a few yards, then decided to take a pic of the van and registration of the van, then called it in to the police. I hung around but i thought i'd let them deal with it and decide.

CX.