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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

"Nigel loves gay packy's" [sic]

105 replies

Cheaplamp · 01/04/2012 20:51

is scrawled on the floor of our spare bedroom. In big letters.

We're having a lot of building work done following a big insurance claim and have moved out. It's all been handled by our insurer - we haven't appointed the builders - and we know who the main contractor is but not their subcons. My friend thinks I should contact the police about it as it's racism. We are a mixed race family incidentally but none of us know a Nigel!

AIBU to speak to the police and have it recorded in some way, or just ignore and move on? We can't prove who did it - but we certainly didn't!

OP posts:

TheMonster · 02/04/2012 14:44

Now you are being silly, MrsA. I've explained my comment.

SarahDoctorIndyHouse · 02/04/2012 14:44

I thought it was mindless stupidity at that point

Mindless racist and homophobic stupidity. We ALL have a duty to call it where we see it and NOT move on until we are sure it has been dealt with.

Cover it up?????? Give me strength!

TheMonster · 02/04/2012 14:48

I would like to point out at this point that I am not the person who wrote the offensive comment. Perhaps people should stop nit picking now.

SarahDoctorIndyHouse · 02/04/2012 14:48

Mrs A is most ceratinly not being silly...imho she is being very clear sighted.

You sort of explained your comment, and I agreed that its being personal would be worse, but just to be absolutely clear it was hateful and unacceptable already even without the 'personal' touch. Racism and homophobia even if launched into a void just have no place in today's world.

To ignore either is as good (bad) as condoning them.

TheMonster · 02/04/2012 14:50

I agree, Sarah. It's offensive and not acceptable. I do, however, suspect that it could be the work of an ignorant and very foolish person who did not mean it to be directed to the OP. It doesn't make it ok at all, far from it, but it makes it the result of stupidity rather that pure hatred.

MrsArchieTheInventor · 02/04/2012 14:51

BodyofEyore - I was actually posting in response to Latsia's quote, though I don't know who posted the original quote of 'cover it up and move on'.

And I won't stop being 'silly' as you put it. It is racist and homophobic and is unacceptable. And the OP should not accept something like that being scrawled in her house and it should be rightly treated as a hate crime and investigated by police.

Latsia · 02/04/2012 14:51

BodyOfEeyore - fair point!

Won't do it again though

TheMonster · 02/04/2012 14:53

Me neither, Latsia.

TheMonster · 02/04/2012 14:54

I would still like to know who Nigel is and how he feels about the whole thing.

SarahDoctorIndyHouse · 02/04/2012 14:55

I would like to point out at this point that I am not the person who wrote the offensive comment. Perhaps people should stop nit picking now.

Nobody has suggested that it was you Body But I fear that it is you who are nit picking when you suggest that such stupidity can be ignored as long as it is not personal. The fact that it might be personal is just one (highly odioud) aspect of it. But the rest of it is bad enough as a stand alone!

Latsia · 02/04/2012 14:57

And yes to clarify my disgust was not directed at BodyOfEeyore.

That quote was nothing to do with your posts and I was really only using it as a summary of some of the disappointing sentiments expressed on this thread.

TheMonster · 02/04/2012 14:58

SarahDoctorIndyHouse · 02/04/2012 15:03

What on earth made you think that an OP dealing with a foul comment contained in it had the potential to be lighthearted Body

HalfPastWine · 02/04/2012 15:04

Seeing racist graffiti out in the general public area is bad enough but to find it in your own home is intimidating imo. I'd hate to think that people who felt that way about me had been in my home. It kind of makes me feel violated, like a burglar has been there iyswim.

Original poster

Cheaplamp · 02/04/2012 15:06

Right now, Bodyofeyeore, I think Nigel, and his illiterate friend are feeling rather unhappy. As is their contracts manager, hopefully.

OP posts:

SarahDoctorIndyHouse · 02/04/2012 15:10

Cheaplamp

Let's hope so!

Pendeen · 02/04/2012 15:16

Mixedclassbaby

Not sure I like the tone of your comment.

How can it be a crime to offend someone? So I can say that you have offended me with your comment. Is that a crime?

TheMonster · 02/04/2012 15:23

I didn't Sarah.
Cheaplamp, I hope the author has been reprimanded and now realises that what he did, whatever his intention, was unacceptable.
Nigel, however, could be an innocent party.

Original poster

Cheaplamp · 02/04/2012 15:23

Pendeen, under whatever bit of law it is, a great deal of weight is placed on the feelings of the complainant.

OP posts:

limitedperiodonly · 02/04/2012 15:47

Pendeen as I said, it is a crime to offend someone depending on how your offensive comment or behaviour was expressed.

If a person feels threatened by you that is for them and the CPS to decide, not you.

I'd say writing racist language in the private home of a mixed race family is quite intimidating.

You could also transgress laws on racial and other hate crimes.

This legislation is there for a good idea.

MrsArchieTheInventor · 02/04/2012 15:52

Pandeen - in response to your post from yesterday evening, racism isn't itself a crime and I would defend to the last a person's right to free speech, regardless of how much I disagreed with the views of the beholder. Free speech is free speech.

The OP has more than sufficient reason to believe the the builders carrying out work on her house wrote something racist and homophobic on her floor. That is a crime. A hate crime to be specific and is taken seriously by police and logged as such. No one has the right to make her feel like she did when she found the scrawling, and certainly not in her own house. She has called the police via 101 and logged the complaint and they are in the process of dealing with it and will hopefully find and punish the eejit who thought it funny to write something like that on someone's floor in the first place, and hopefully this person's employers will also take a dim view of their employee's actions.

In response to BodyofEyore's last post - I think the fact that 'Nigel' is written on the floor is by and large irrelevant. It's the words 'packy's' [sic] and 'gay' and the context in which they were used which are the offence. Gut feeling is that Nigel has nothing to worry about. It's the eejit who thought it amusing to scrawl on Cheaplamp's floor who has to answer for their actions.

Pendeen · 03/04/2012 16:59

I had already advised earlier in the thread that racism is not a crime, so no need to repeat that.

From what I have read so far the on this particulat thread, the police are not investigating the 'crime' of causing offence at all but are actually looking into possible criminal damage, with a racially aggravated element.

Any charge (or caution) would be on this basis, not that of causing offence.

FWIW, I agree that the OP has every right to feel offended and am not defending anyone.

Original poster

Cheaplamp · 04/04/2012 22:41

Well now I'm questioning whether we did the Right Thing. The building contractors have (probably unsurprisingly) pulled everyone off the job, and are returning the keys until the police have completed their investigation.

So we have to stay in our rental house for longer, and our house remains buggered beyond our wildest nightmares.

OP posts:

limitedperiodonly · 04/04/2012 23:12

Shit.

Yes, you did do the right thing. Unlike you, I do find it surprising that the contractor pulled everyone from the job.

I've been a union member since 1983 and can tell you it's touching, but unheard of, to hear of such solidarity over anything, let alone an idiot, particularly in such in an unorganised industry and in such crappy times.

There is something else going on here. I don't know what, but I would not be unhappy that they weren't in my house any more.

Maybe they were looking for an excuse to go. Talk to the police and your insurer tomorrow and do keep us informed.

Take care.

Original poster

Cheaplamp · 04/04/2012 23:31

I think they've pulled everyone off the job as a damage limitation exercise - afterall their client is actually our insurer, who puts loads of work their way, so they can't be seen to take anything other than a very conservative approach I guess. Our Contract is with the insurer and the contractor is there as their representative in effect.

DH is going to speak to our loss adjuster tomorrow and I expect his opening words will be "WTF now?"

I very strongly suspect we'll end up with another contractor and builder. They didn't want the job - we were miles away from their main area but their first sub con builders were chucked off the job by them for being crap.

Currently we have no floor in the kitchen and diner, stripped back to first fix throughout the ground floor, no bathrooms, every carpet is up, no floor in the ensuite, two flights of stairs have been stripped of plaster, one staircase is about to be removed, and a garage conversion not even started. We haven't ordered a kitchen yet (the contractor has to do it as it's all insurance) and we put the claim in, in Aug 2011.

And the WORST thing is that all of the work was done in 2008 as the result of a previous flood, and the only reason we had this second claim, is that the building work was SO bad last time it's all got to be done again, plus fixing the additional damage done as a result of the poor works - the soil stack wasn't properly connected to the toilets etc etc. Our insurer is now treating it all as a continuous claim from 2008.

So basically THEY (the insurer's last builders) did this to us.

Fed up.

OP posts:

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