Should we pursue police action after a drunk family caused a fight.

[foodlovefood]

Need some thoughts on this weird situation that happened a few weeks ago.

DP, some friends and I were at a really busy music event. Our friends went into the crowd, while DP and I stayed at the side. There was a railing in front of me, and as DP is tall, he was standing behind me. Directly in front of the railing were some stairs that security wouldn’t allow anyone to stand on. We were beside the entrance to the stairs and had a great view, so we were happily chatting to the people around us.

An elderly woman, who appeared to be quite drunk, repeatedly tried to stand on the stairs. Security told her several times to move, but each time she would try to squeeze in front of or beside me instead. At one point she was standing on my toes, and my face was practically in the back of her hair! I had no view and was getting repeatedly bumped, so I asked her several times to move.

Thankfully, security eventually intervened because she was blocking my view and told her to stop coming back to that spot or she would be removed from the event. She finally stayed away, although she seemed to treat the whole thing as a joke.

When we were leaving, her family approached us and started an argument, saying that we'd been aggressive towards their mum and hadn't allowed her to see the band. They were all very drunk. They threatened to punch my DP, who responded with words rather than violence.

Our group of friends then appeared, and one of the woman's family members grabbed and pulled the hair of our 15-year-old niece. I put my arm out to stop it happening.

Security and the police came over. We gave our details and explained that an adult had assaulted a 15-year-old. I explained everything that had happened, and thankfully the security guard who had dealt with the woman also backed up our version of events.

There was no apology. The family simply said they thought our niece was older.

My niece is completely fine and doesn't want to take it any further, and neither do her parents.
However, I've had a call from the police today asking whether I want to take the matter further. From what I gathered, the venue may have had other complaints about this family's behaviour and obviously aren't happy that a 15-year-old was assaulted.

Part of me feels like it's not worth pursuing. The whole thing started because a drunk woman kept trying to get into a restricted area and got annoyed when she was asked to move. Her family then became aggressive and threatened my DP, and one of them physically grabbed a 15-year-old.

But equally, I don't want to dismiss it just because my niece is fine and it was a relatively minor assault.

What would you do? Would you let it go and chalk it up to a group of drunk, angry people who couldn't share a space, or would you take it further because an adult physically assaulted a 15-year-old?

It's always worth pursuing violent people need to learn violence gets punished

What would be the point of pursuing it? You’re not doing the venue any favours, they can simply refuse entry to those people. But as you’re not the victim of the assault, I’m not sure there’s even anything for you to pursue.
I would forget about it and move on.

Take it further. Why should people get away with that kind of behaviour?

What does your 15 year old want. How does she feel about it?

I would make a complaint, personally, even if doesn't go any further. These people need to realise there's consequences to their bad behaviour (if the police pursue it).

personally, if you commit an offence where an Under 18 is a victim then I suggest crucifixion should be the soft option.

Ask for action to be taken.

Your niece and her family don’t want to so I would respect their wishes.

My niece is completely fine and doesn't want to take it any further, and neither do her parents

Will DN be expected to make further statements? Is your sibling going to be annoyed if you go against their wishes?

Absolutely pursue it. People not doing so is why idiots like these think they can get away with it.

Surely you wouldn’t seriously consider taking things further because someone pulled your niece’s hair??? Of course the family concerned were out of order but it’s completely over the top and disproportionate to take things further.

The fact the police are asking means there’s not enough evidence to just charge them and your niece will have to run the gauntlet of providing a police interview & report, potentially a victim impact statement - backed up by a psychological assessment. She may have to answer questions to a judge. Your niece wants to put the whole thing behind her, is it really worth putting all that stress on her at 15 over hair pulling that you stopped? At the end of the day, what do you think will happen? What sort of fine do you think they’d end up paying? Or dodging?

I think all I would agree to is YOU filing a police report as witness and if the family does more of this low level antisocial behaviours, the police will eventually have enough incidents to take action without asking a 15 yr old to press charges.

This attitude is why the world has gone to shit!!! If no one is held accountable for their actions then they do it over and over again getting away with it!!

YES op please have them charged with whatever they can be charged with as this will hopefully stop them doing this again or if they do it again they will have far worse consequences due to this being on file that they have done this before!! Unless we stand up for what is right and wrong in the world then the arseholes just carry on ruining events for people as “no one wants to get involved!!”

What level of violence on a 15 year old would be acceptable to you before pressing charges?
A slap? Punch? Knock her teeth out?

What kind of adult assaults a 15 year old? If it was your daughter you'd probably think differently.

Of course pursue it. No one got badly hurt this time, but what about next time? Anyone who acts like this could kill someone (people have died after falling on their heads because a drunk, aggressive person grabbed them). Whether you niece is 15 or 50 is irrelevant. The police pursue DV calls even when the caller doesn't want them to, but this time it seems they need you. You could be saving someone's life.

My niece doesn’t want to do anything. Her hair got pulled but she wasn’t hurt. I think at the time we were shocked that it escalated this way.

I really think you should tbh, the more we turn a blind eye the more we get of this kind of behaviour as a society. If you don’t want to do it for yourselves, do it for the next poor sods who will run into these people. Sorry OP, people like this just make everything miserable for everyone around them.

It took the CPS over three years to get my friends rape case to court. I'd think very hard about how long you want this hanging over you. If the venue has CCTV and has handed it to the police and taken statements that's one thing, but also think hard if it's not a irrefutable case. 3 years wait for a case that resulted in 6 months sentence? Is that justice for the ongoing stress? Yes they might get a criminal record which protects others to some extent. But don't think there's any swift justice

Are you happy to go to court over this? If you are proceed and if not, don’t.

Jump down off your high horse for a sec and be realistic. What do you think is going to happen? Nobody is getting the money, time and great efforts it takes spent taking them to court for a drunken hair pull. And the OP isn’t a victim of a crime, her niece is.