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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think if this was your DS travelling north by train this morning from around Leamington Spa you should be ashamed of yourself?

70 replies

CharminglyOdd · 25/10/2012 21:27

It made me so fucking furious at the time, even more so because I was travelling on a staff card so couldn't say anything - if I create a fuss whilst using a staff card I get disciplined. Then I thought maybe his parents would be on MN and would recognise him and maybe have a fucking word Angry At the very least I need to vent.

He has brown hair, is in lower sixth/first year of A levels and was travelling with a girl a year older who was off to visit her sister. The usual teenage angst/competing with each other to see who they have slept with/who fancies them and blatantly subtley flirting at the same time. I blocked it out until the words "she was passed out and naked" came to my ears.

He was telling his friend - at the top of his voice - about how a girl he called "the whale" had been at a party. She had got very drunk and passed out, at which point he and his male friends stripped her naked and hid her bra (girl on the train asked gleefully "Did you hide her clothes?!", which is how I know that Angry). The poor drunk girl woke up as they were taking pictures of her and started sobbing.

He thought it was fucking hilarious. From the way he was talking I have no reason to doubt what he was saying - he didn't think it was a big deal, it was just something else to add to the conversation they were having. The girl he was sitting with said it was really funny. And I so wanted to interject and say how disgusting that was and I did nothing because I was scared of getting into serious trouble with work (have only been there a month).

I am twenty five and can honestly say I don't think any of the boys my age when I was seventeen would have behaved like that. Let alone a whole group of them. That's not to say they were saints but they wouldn't have stripped someone naked, filmed them and laughed when they cried. That poor, poor girl :(

OP posts:
makingitin2012 · 26/10/2012 10:39

But there are no double standards in thinking participating in a sexual assault is worse than laughing about a description of one

I see your point. But, consider the following: What if the person that the 'participating' boy was describing it to on the train was another boy, not a girl?

Do we really then think that the OP's post would still have been directed to the 'particpating' boy only, not both boys?

I know it's a question only the OP can answer, but I'm sure as hell that the post in that instance would have been directed towards both boys. The fact that it isn't directed towards both, which is (I suspect) because the other person was a girl, does, to me, confirm a double standard.

TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 26/10/2012 10:43

Um, can't speak for the OP but yes, I think her post was about the behaviour of the perpetrator and sympathy for the victim and would have been the same whether the audience for the story was male or female.

Lifeisontheup · 26/10/2012 10:43

I have a 16 yr old and a 19 yr old and would be deeply ashamed if I found out my DS's had been talking like that. I feel it would be partially my fault if I had bought them up with such a lack of decency.
I would also be mortified if my DD thought this was funny.

makingitin2012 · 26/10/2012 11:36

Will have to disagree and leave it there then! I really do think if it had have been two boys talking then the post would have been directed towards the two, (rather than just the one in this case). Differences of opinion I guess.

CharminglyOdd · 26/10/2012 14:05

Doctrine Thanks, you have it exactly. I think makingit misread or misinterpreted my OP and subsequent reply to them.

I am just back from the police station. The officer was lovely, took it extremely seriously and reassured me twice that he would do something about it. He will contact Leamington and see if they have had a report - particularly if pictures were put on facebook this may be likely. If they get something then they will ask me to come in a give a full statement. I told him the times, the locations and at what point the boy turned around (in response to someone dropping a bag) so would have been caught by CCTV (luckily in a station so timing will be exact).

He also gave me the log number and their phone number so that if I see the boy again I can call the police and they will come and find him (eg BTP on a train). The first thing I hope, obviously, is that he was making it up. But if not I hope they have had a report and he (and the other boys who took part) can be punished. Maybe then his friends (whether they be male or female) won't find it so funny.

OP posts:
TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 26/10/2012 14:20

Well done CO!

GwendolineScaryLacey · 26/10/2012 14:31

Well done. I'm disgusted at the amount of posters that think this is ok because he's only a teenager.

fuzzpig · 26/10/2012 14:31

Wow. That's brilliant - I really thought they wouldn't take it seriously (or at least just say that an overheard boasting wasn't enough to follow up.

Well done. I hope those nasty people get what's coming to them.

Prarieflower · 26/10/2012 14:33

Well done CO.

exoticfruits · 26/10/2012 16:06

Well done- I am pleasantly surprised that it was taken so seriously(as it should be)- do update when you have news.

foslady · 26/10/2012 16:13

When I read your AIBU Op i could of cried for the girl - I'm so please you reported this and let's hope the poor girl gets some justice - all because someone she's never met cared about how she would be - have some Thanks, you deserve them

SoleSource · 26/10/2012 19:34

I love you! fab person xxx

ravenAK · 26/10/2012 19:41

That's briliant news, well done you.

KarlosKKrinkelbeim · 26/10/2012 21:11

how very splendid of you, CO. Well done. Here's hoping the little bastard learns the hard way how to treat girls decently.

Brycie · 26/10/2012 21:14

"are you really suggesting his parents taught him this behaviour?"

I dont understand how its nothing to do with the parents.

Brycie · 26/10/2012 21:15

Gosh, thats amazing. Fantastic.

lionheart · 26/10/2012 21:40

Good for you, CO. Hope they get to the bottom of it all.

LordLurkin · 26/10/2012 23:18

Well done OP! .... You did damned good there.

And if it was one of my children either bragging about a sexual assault or finding a sexual assault funny I would be mortified and wonder where the hell I went wrong in raising decent human beings.

All I can hope is that this disgusting young man gets identified and is dealt with severely. And hopefully the disgusting young woman with him might think twice about her views as well.

NonnoMum · 27/10/2012 23:50

OP - I am really impressed with you. Thank you. I've been feeling bad for being so sanctimonious and wondering what I would really have done in that situation (i.e if I would really have been brave enough to report it) but then I've also been wondering how I would feel if it were my daughter being treated like that.
Thank you - you are really brave and considerate... Sorry if I came across all judgey...

loobydoopy · 28/10/2012 06:37

Yanbu. It is awful, makes me terrified as a mother :(

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