The Great British Public hit new lows

[HardStaringBearFromDarkestPeru]

Yesterday morning I was driving on a busy main road, plenty of traffic. I notice a young girl walking along the pavement on the opposite side.

She's is wearing just a T-shirt, no shoes & is Middle Eastern in appearance.

Next mini-roundabout I do a U-turn, drive back with my hazards on & get up on the pavement in front of her, getting a lot of abuse from other drivers along the way.

The girl is about 8/9 years old, really placid & keeps saying her parents are up ahead but don't worry she knows where her house is.
She was wearing knickers along with her T-shirt but nothing else - she told me she forgot to put her trousers & shoes on that morning.
English was her first language, she was unsure of her name yet was content to sit alongside me, a total stranger with a different skin colour to her own.
She was almost abnormally docile - it was really disturbing to see.

The 999 call handler was brilliant.
As soon as I mentioned child safeguarding & my fears for both our safety, she dispatched a vehicle before I had given her any details beyond my name & address. The car arrives within 10mins of my call.

The officers were fantastic with the girl & she was happy to get in their car. They even guided me back into the traffic.

She was a young girl on her own. At first glance she looked naked from the waist down. With her skin colour she stuck out like a sore thumb in a predominantly white area.

And yet people just drove straight past.
Disgusting behaviour. This isn't loo roll or petrol, we're talking about a young child. Just when you think the Great British Public can't sink any lower, they do.

(I've not heard back from the police but they have my details. I hope the girl is now safe)

I appreciate I'm banging on about skin colour & I hope Mumsnetters don't take offence or think I'm racist.

Where I live, there are areas where you don't expect to see a white face & areas that you don't expect to see a brown face. It's a fact of life, however uncomfortable it might be.

But her skin colour made her even more noticeable to me. She wasn't in her area of town. I think I'm digging myself in too deep so I'll shut up but I hope you all know what I'm getting at.

This makes my heart ache and you absolutely did the right thing. If only more people were like you. We are as a species inherently selfish and nothing surprises me anymore.

That's really sad, I hope the girl is given proper help. You did the right thing by helping her. Most people are selfish now and will step over injured people in the street.

In all honesty it sounds like a bloody dangerous place to stop. Nothing to do with 'the public' and everything to do with safety/not even noticing.

If you wanted to share how you helped her then you could have just done that, what you did was lovely, you didn't have to do it by stealth. We all like a pat on the back every now and then.

I can at least understand why a man might not want to approach her, and such is life (thanks to the actions of some men), but you did exactly the right thing.

I read somewhere once, I think it was regarding public crime and psychology, that most people will always expect 'someone else' to react and help, especially in a densely populated area. In fact, the more people witness the event, the less likely one of them is to actually step in.
I think it was in connection to a young actress who was repeatedly stabbed in a busy street in LA many decades ago. A maintenance guy from further away finally ran forward to pull her attacker off, but countless people simply stood stock still, watching.

Snide about British people = meh.

Any follow up on the little girl? Good on you for taking initiative to call for help. I hope the authorities got to the bottom of why she was out alone and why she was out with no trousers and shoes on.

I know exactly what you’re saying. Well done for stopping and taking some responsibility when others didn’t. I think you did exactly the right thing and I’m sure the police did too otherwise they’d have told you off for stopping somewhere dangerous.

I don't see what it has to do with skin colour to be honest, and find the extremely intense focus on it rather odd.

Obviously you were correct to call the police OP, from the information you give the situation sounds very upsetting and one can only hope it is not all as sinister as it appears on the face of it.

We live in a complex society and sadly people do and will continue to be unsure of approaching situations where something is amiss, for a number of reasons. Rightly, or wrongly. It is very possible the police were informed by other parties at a similar time; they would not appraise you of this.

I'm not sure I really understand the purposes of the post in all honesty. I don't think the details of her state of undress or skin colour are necessary or appropriate for others to know and would have kept this private personally.

@Taoneusa

Snide about British people = meh.

Not really snide when it's so bloody apparent.

Sorry Blindleadingtheblind. I appear to have used an incorrect word?

A lot of people are too scared of what people might say about them to do the right thing. Well done for helping her. Also I totally understand your need for validation for doing something no one else seemed prepared to do.

What a weird post. Her skin colour was completely irrelevant.

Portraying yourself as a female Knight in Shining armour and the sweeping generalisation of the British Public is rather bizarre.

People might not have stopped if they were concentrating on the road ahead.

Just because you have a beast eye it doesn’t mean everyone else at that time did.

Describing her as being docile is odd. Were you wanting her to start screaming and shouting at you?

Beady eye

Disgusting behaviour

I suspect a majority didn't see her or look hard enough to register her state of dress.

I've been on psychiatric wards & seen people as calm as she was as they were dosed up on sedatives.
The little girl seemed out of it - spaced out. I thought she had been drugged.
She allowed me to stop her, she wasn't running away from me, she was sitting next to me, I wasn't forcing her to do so, I wasn't holding her down.
It was scary to see.

I moved from London which was multi cultural to the countryside where it's pretty much all white. I'm sorry to offend you but you do notice the difference.
I've been to events here where there have been no non-white faces.
I've read people on MN saying that as PoC they moved from a big town to an idyllic little village & found it uncomfortable as they were the only non-whites there.
I was a total stranger to her of a different race. It could've made her nervous. That's what I'm saying.

Driving - well you keep an eye on your surroundings - people do walk off pavements into traffic.

Validation?
What I was attempting to say was there were plenty of people around & nobody did anything.
In the time it took me to turn the car around, the child had wandered even further & people on her side of the road had still continued to drive past.
A semi-naked young girl walking along - what if it was your daughter?
Would you be happy if your child was in that state & no-one did anything?

People just don't want to to help others any more. It's something that is happening a lot now especially post-Covid.

As for those of you that are so busy taking offence in what I've been saying?
Well I hope none of you end up in the situation where the outcome is dependant on a total stranger stepping in.

Apologies, it wasn’t my intention to cause offence.

I’m not sure why you think all children act like terrified skittish little rabbits. A lot are happy to chat to/ interact with adults

I don't think the colour skin of the child was an issue, whether it's usual in your part of the country or not. The thing that would have leapt out at me would have been that she wasn't dressed, walking alongside a busy road.

I wouldn't have pulled in where you did though, it sounds dangerous for traffic there, but would have pulled up somewhere and walked back to her, then following your approach.

You're not expecting the police to report back to you though, are you? You've done your bit and the girl is safe now, that's great.

It’s just Bystander Effect in action, not really a ‘Great British Public’ thing or deliberately racist/malice.

Anyway, well done you.

Your generalising of the 'public' is a bit grating though. You have no idea what other people do or whether somebody would have stepped in.

I'm really glad the police were prompt though, they're the only ones who children should be taught to trust and get in a car with. This girl was lucky that it was you who picked her up and not some weirdo.

Some of your replies are scary OP.
I hope the girl is now safe. Thank god someone decent stepped in. I hope the police let you know how she is now.

I'd say the strangest thing is a 8/9 year old not knowing their own name.

If you wanted to share how you helped her then you could have just done that, what you did was lovely, you didn't have to do it by stealth. We all like a pat on the back every now and then.

Indeed. I hate stealth "I just did a kind deed" virtue-signalling posts like this. You can see it from a mile away even if OP decided to kill 2 birds with one stone.

People probably didn't have the time to stop as they were driving past and wondering what in the world was going on.

I'm not white.

@HardStaringBearFromDarkestPeru

I've been on psychiatric wards & seen people as calm as she was as they were dosed up on sedatives. The little girl seemed out of it - spaced out. I thought she had been drugged. She allowed me to stop her, she wasn't running away from me, she was sitting next to me, I wasn't forcing her to do so, I wasn't holding her down. It was scary to see.

I moved from London which was multi cultural to the countryside where it's pretty much all white. I'm sorry to offend you but you do notice the difference.
I've been to events here where there have been no non-white faces.
I've read people on MN saying that as PoC they moved from a big town to an idyllic little village & found it uncomfortable as they were the only non-whites there.
I was a total stranger to her of a different race. It could've made her nervous. That's what I'm saying.

Driving - well you keep an eye on your surroundings - people do walk off pavements into traffic.

Validation?
What I was attempting to say was there were plenty of people around & nobody did anything.
In the time it took me to turn the car around, the child had wandered even further & people on her side of the road had still continued to drive past.
A semi-naked young girl walking along - what if it was your daughter?
Would you be happy if your child was in that state & no-one did anything?

People just don't want to to help others any more. It's something that is happening a lot now especially post-Covid.

As for those of you that are so busy taking offence in what I've been saying?
Well I hope none of you end up in the situation where the outcome is dependant on a total stranger stepping in.

I have been in a situation where I was dependant on someone stepping in.

I had a mentally ill man start harassing me and threatening me. I've had a man follow me home whilst I was shouting at him to leave me alone. Guess what happened both times? Nothing! I was surrounded by people all of whom chose not to help me or stand up to the person harassing me.

It's not a race issue.

I was in London. I'm white. Nobody came to help the white woman.

It can happen to anybody, regardless of skin colour. Sadly some people are just arseholes who choose not to help somebody in distress.