‘Are you sure you wanna say this? Because i am about to beat you up.’
New submission from Julia
I was walking home from a party on Friday night with two girlfriends. As we walked past the crowd outside a bar someone grabbed my bum. I turned around and immediately embarked on a tirade of ‘Don’t you touch girls like that, it’s disrespectful and intimidating’ blah blah. My two friends got immediately defensive and starting laying into the guys. The guys got very aggressive very quickly. They were asking me ‘Are you sure you wanna say this? Because i am about to beat you up.’ They started shouting, and we were shouting back, and i became worried it was going to get really nasty so i pulled my friends away. They followed us down the street, shouting, spitting at us and throwing their drinks at us. I was worried they were going to see where i lived as we were on my street so we sort of slowed down, and before long they got bored and backed off.
To be honest it’s not the first time this has happened, it was actually the second time that week that i had been groped in that same way. But something in me flipped this time, and because i was close to home, i decided to call 101-the non-emergency police number. To my shock and joy, the police took the call incredibly seriously. The operator was very sympathetic and there were two officers at my house within 10 minutes. One of them took my details and apologised that this had happened, he was very sweet and sympathetic. He explained that they would go and look for the guys, and if they could identify them, they would arrest them and call me the next day.
They didn’t find them, but i just got a call from a police officer, who asked me to go through the events again, and explained that they were about to search cctv footage, and if they found images would i be willing to go to court. I said i absolutely would.
Like i said, this isn’t the first time i have been sexually harassed, and it certainly wasn’t the worst experience of sexual harassment i’ve been through, but it was the first time i reported it and i now feel really stupid for not doing it sooner. I always thought the police wouldn’t care, but i was wrong. Even if they never catch those guys, i know now that next time something happens i will feel comfortable and safe reporting it, and that the more we all do it, the more the police force will be encouraged to take even more action, and make hackney a safer place.
3 Responses
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Terrible incident to happen, but fantastic news that the police took it seriously. I hope they find these guys and hopefully they’ll think twice about harassing women in future.
Horrible incident but well done on reporting it and great that it was taken so seriously! Definitely heartening and next time it happens to me, I’ll definitely think of your story and call the police.
Sounds like some little twit making up tales.