School boy won't let people sit down

[Hospital2022]

Every day after school we see the same boy on the bus. He sits on a double seat and refuses to let people sit next to him he puts his leg there so no one can sit there. Several times people have wanted to sit. He won't move for anyone. Such as small children who can't balance . Elderly people. Adults have told him of on several occasions telling him to let the old lady sit down . Today he sat on the back seats. The ones where there are 5/6 seats all next to each other. He had his bag on one seat. He was sitting on the one next to it, then had his leg on the other so was taking up 3 seats . An old man asked him to move over so he can sit down . The boy refused to move several times the man asked and the boy kept refusing. The man then said im 74 years old and you won't even let me sit down you have no manners. He was a frail man. He was able to get a seat in the end. But this has been going on for a few weeks now and the boy is doing it everyday. I know what school he has to but I don't know his name or anything like that. So I can't complain to the school bas thete are over 1000 pupils in the school.

We are talking a London bus at school going home time so it's very busy.

It sounds petty when I write it but he is causing upset abd stress towards passengers.

Any suggestions ?

I worked for a London bus company for several years including in the training of drivers. It IS something they can get involved in. Fair enough some might not be keen but just persist.

They probably won't get out of the cab but they can make an announcement "can the little brat on the back seat please move off the 3 seats and let others sit down" and "this bus is going nowhere until you move". It might just embarrass him to move.

If that fails, they can call the Transport police out. Yes its inconvenient to you & other passengers but sometimes you have to take a stand.

As for a photo. If not brave enough to take on, the bus company can supply CCTV images to TfL. Make a complaint on TfL website with date, bus location and time. Very easy to find CCTV with that information. TfL can contact school and/or refer to local anti social behaviour unit. It will get followed up.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll , I know what you mean, but my sort of asking - a polite but very firm, ‘Would you please move your bag?’ - neither timid nor remotely apologetic - sounds much more like telling, and so far anyway, has never failed to work.

So much nonsense being suggested all the billy big balls scenarios to enact
throw coffee over him
chuck water on his groin then blather on about incontinence whilst calling him sonny?
Hurl his bag
Sit on his lap
Film and stream it

yea yea

Inform the school ask it’s raised as an issue

I have a lot of sympathy with the driver, to be honest. It's difficult enough having to manoeuvre a large vehicle through the city already, without being expected to deal with threatening behaviour, whilst also stopping the vehicle and annoying everybody else on board, as well as traffic behind you.

If the bus driver were built like James Haskell, it would probably be easier; but what if the driver were a petite woman or an older person expected to go and confront somebody potentially much bigger and stronger than her/him? Or are we saying that women shouldn't be allowed/should be discouraged from this career choice, however good they are at driving?

Just chuck his bag on the floor and sit down. Or shove his leg out of the way and sit there.

There have been a couple of posts aboiy other adults telling the boy /helping out the vulnerable/elderly. Several adults have said things to him separately and together.

Anyway as I said up thread I am going to try and take a picture. But if Need be I'm pretty sure I could pic him out in a photo booklet. I'm going to take note of his tie as well as I think the colour/pattern often indicates what year he's in.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER - Fair point, then!

I live in London and seen this done, works every time. Usually the little shit causing the trouble storms off in a humph when the bus is at standstill and the driver threatens to call the police. ( the kid using emergency exit handle to leg it)

So what?

it doesn’t mean he can prevent any other person on public transport using a free seat.

Of course it is ‘socially unacceptable’ behaviour but why can’t people l come from an angle of care rather than judgement

What if the bus is his only form of transport
You don’t know peoples circumstances
Just be NICE!

The irony of these comments.😆

Fucking hell, why does every post on this forum start with a complaint about someone’s behaviour (whether it be anti social, bullying, etc) always end up with the same group of people replying with

“maybe he has autism”
”maybe he has x y z going on” etc

No. He’s a dragged up little shit who doesn’t have any respect for others.

Stop using autism and the like to let someone off with behaving poorly. It’s offensive to those with autism (who try their best to fit into a world that doesn’t make it easy) to constantly be compared to little shits, and it’s letting this brat off with behaviour which he is knowingly doing because he just wants to be a nuisance.

I understand not wanting to move his stuff or kick off in person because of knife crime, but really by now the OP should have reported this or at least made it blindingly clear to the bus driver that he needs kicked off and then it’s the bus drivers decision how he handles it.

Again though, many bus drivers will intervene and actually many of them are women.

The most common course of action is to refuse to move the bus so passengers normally end up intervening, or transport police eventually arrive.

Of course the thread is populated with morons people making apologies for the little bag of shit. He’s rude and arrogant, so he’s clearly having a tough time and we should be kind (fuck off), or worse, he’s apparently autistic and we’d be ableist to suggest he move his shit and let an elderly man sit down (news flash, it’s offensive AF to suggest rudeness = autism).

He can always walk if he values his personal space so much.

Inform the school ask it’s raised as an issue

And if he doesn't see the very obvious error of his ways and continues to do it anyway? Maybe the government could start advertising on the telly and telling everybody what bad behaviours they must never do, and then the police force could be done away with?

Considering that some people on here are insisting that you can't take photos of children, so he can't even be identified to the school (or could outright deny it).

It doesn’t make any difference to the people needing a seat and being prevented by him from sitting down.

as for not wanting people sitting next to him, then better not take public transport.

the clue is in the name.

Annoyingly in my experience the police excuse is starting to not work anymore with kids like these.

Had some a while back outside my workplace being little shits. I went out and told them to clear off or I’d be phoning the police. The ring leader looked me square in the face and said “I’ll wait”. Kids stood outside for a further 30 minutes before leaving out of boredom.

I didn’t want to ring the police (in all honesty I didn’t have the time to stay on the phone, I had work to be doing), but I had to. But obviously because the kids weren’t doing anything so bad it would be an immediate dispatch call, you’re going to be waiting a while for them. By the time they eventually show up, the kids will more likely than not be gone anyway.

If they do show up while they’re still there and the kids don’t make an immediate bolt, they don’t do anything that would actually put them off doing it again. They just don’t have any respect or fear or authority anymore.

thank you @ProperCupofTea and others, for providing factual advice.
Have also been involved in training London bus drivers, and working in London secondary schools, and can confirm that they will usually take action if there are incidents of anti-social behaviour on their buses; TFL will remove free travel passes from teenagers who abuse this privilege; Secondary schools will take action if you contact them about their pupils' behaviour in public.

Everything that happens on (and around) the bus is filmed (and that footage is regularly made available to the police and anti-ASB teams), and you taking a photo of the offender, whatever their age, is NOT illegal in what is considered a public place.

That means it's NOT such a good idea to sit on the child, or throw water on them, or some of the other suggestions made in this thread, however annoyed you are, as those would constitute criminal acts of assault. And there would be CCTV evidence of you committing those crimes... however moving their bag would be fine.

Nobody likes anyone sitting next to them. You put up with it because you’re on the bus and that’s part of the deal.

I haven’t RTFT but I have read the OPs posts. I still don’t understand why no one has said to him ‘you need to move your bag so other people can sit down and if you don’t move your bag I will move it’

It most certainly isn't against the law. You have every right to take a photo of someone in a public place and I would certainly do so. Little prick

@Irealisenow

You really need to get a big dose of reality.

If the little brat is that precious about personal space then he can use his two legs and make his way home on them.

People genuinely do have struggles with public spaces but none of them act like him. They tend to, you know, find other arrangements so they can get to and from where they need to be without making elderly people stand on a bus where they could easily slip, trip or fall and break their hip.

IF he is neurodivergent then he is ideally suited to following rules.

The caveat to that is the rules he has been given may have not covered all possibilities. This facilitates deliberately sliding between rules or no rule applies here. Both of which can be enjoyed by all kids including the neurodiverse. (I could insert my lived experience creds here)

Or none of these apply and he is an entitled rude little git of unknown neuro make up.

Take his photo send it to the school ,he is very likely going to cross the wrong person and end up a victim of a beating or worse being stabbed and killed and another mother loses their child .
He may well think acting the ‘big man ‘ makes him untouchable, one day he will come unstuck .

This is what they usually do. They announce that they're not moving until the man in the red jacket or boy in the green coat gets off the bus. Eventually the culprit cracks and leaves. No physical confrontation needed.