Firstly, sorry to hear that.I appreciate its a different force but they've put far more effort into investigating this than they put into to investigating my son and his mate getting robbed at knifepoint.
Firstly, sorry to hear that.
There’s definitely a sensible conversation to be had about failures in the justice system but it doesn’t start with wild claims that the CPS don’t prosecute certain crimes. There’s definitely a postcode lottery for justice and I had a mate in a similar situation to your son. He wasn’t robbed but he was viciously attacked in the street in broad daylight in an unprovoked attack. It was bad enough that it put him in hospital for a few days and if it wasn’t for 2 builders in a nearby building site coming to his aid it would have been much worse. The guy actually turned himself in but claimed self defence. Even with 2 independent witnesses the police were for some reason reluctant to charge and it took my mate getting a solicitor involved to get the ball rolling, it then took over a year to get to court where the guy was convicted and sent down. In contrast this happened the same week Caroline Flack attacked her boyfriend who didn’t have to spend a few days in hospital and didn’t want to press charges. Yet she was charged and facing a judge in a matter of weeks. There is a dangerous precedent to favour high profile cases but that’s not to say that this guy didn’t deserve to face the full strength of the law. He sounds like a right piece of work with a history of thinking it’s clever to mock the afflicted.
This fella who posted the WhatsApp videos sounds a right piece of work and I'm glad he's not a neighbour of mine but he hasn't actually hurt anyone as far as we know.
Off topic a bit but…
Sorry to hear about that Clint. Our lad was mugged at knifepoint earlier this year outside a shopping centre in Birmingham on his way home from school. Telephone interview and to be fair the copper was initially very good with him (he’s 12).
It would have been on cctv (there are cameras everywhere in the area) and the police said they could go and retrieve it. But our lad would need to press the charges and testify in court. It was a fully grown “man” (wannabe gangster) and the boy was terrified so we declined as we didn’t want to put him through the court process and have him face the c**t.
What I couldn’t understand is that if it’s on camera the bloke has still broken the law and had a knife in public. Further, we could locate him through the find my phone app and offered the police his location. They declined and said they wouldn’t take further action if we didn’t press charges.
Bizarre as if I act a c**t at the footy (I don’t!), sell a bit of weed or am drunk in public the cps can charge me without a victim to press charges. You’d think they’d be keen to reduce violent knife crime, what better way thank to pinch someone on camera committing a knife crime.
The best bit was when they said if we do charge they may look to force the guy to apologise by letter rather than take it to court
That's a very flippant remark.
The police didn't even visit my son or his mate. There were 7 knifepoint robberies in cov that weekend and the police didn't visit one victim in person, they did everything over the phone but hey, don't miss out on an opportunity to try and be a smart arse.
I appreciate its a different force but they've put far more effort into investigating this than they put into to investigating my son and his mate getting robbed at knifepoint.
The CPS is almost exclusively concerned with whether a case will succeed at trial. The police are a different entity that are concerned with collecting evidence. I’m sorry for what your son went through, I’ve been robbed at knifepoint more than once and I know it’s frustrating but generally unless there’s CCTV or something there’s not much evidence to be collected and chances of a prosecution are low so they don’t commit much resource to it. A bloke filming his crime and admitting to it is a slam dunk in terms of prosecution.
It’s not me being the smartarse here. There’s good reasons why this crime was prosecuted and others aren’t and it’s not “stupid people don’t care about crime”.
Horrendous mate, hope your son is OK.
Not a pleasant experience at any age but especially at 12 and just illustrates what's been said about the police not taking these crimes seriously enough in my opinion.
Cheers. He’s ok now after a couple of months of me driving him too and from, he’s decided to start taking the bus with friends again. The £200 odd he got given in PlayStation store points from the wider family members cheered him up a bit!
In all seriousness though it’s sad that there’s two or three lads in his year that he now swaps similar stories with. And we’re in one of the better areas. For the sake of nipping to the centre and obtaining the footage they would almost certainly have had this prick bang to rights.
Was mugged at knifepoint about the same age and it’s stayed with me since
It was surreal. Gang of black lads with knives in the centre of Birmingham. We negotiated with them so they accepted a pound each off us and agreed not to cut us. My mate wanted to fight them. Dad was fuming. I am just scared and always have been walking in Public on my own.Did anyone get prosecuted?
It could've been worse though mate....you may have stumbled across a viral tiktok showing a dickhead burning a shit model made of shoe boxes...
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