So my quiet town had a visit from our traveller 'friends' this week and

[AndThatsWhatIThinkOfYou]

They wonder why people are so against them setting up camp where ever they please.

They arrived last Wednesday on a football field with a park and caused a whole load of trouble, for example, going to the petrol station handing over euros, being told they won't accept euros as payment, they simple got in their vans and drove of.

Made a visit to our local Sainsburys got caught shoplifting, were locked in until police were called.

Local children playing on park got beaten up with sticks by the traveller children.

And to top it all of 3 vans pulling up outside a local pub, very busy, dropping their trousers and all three disgusting men casually took a shit one by one on the pub doorstep. Got in there vans and drove of.

Then left the football field and park in an absolute mess. Rubbish everywhere.

Each incident police were called but nothing has been done.

So AIBU to wonder why travellers think this behavior is acceptable? and why can't anything be done to stop it?

Oh and I would like to point out any child who doesn't attend school causes disruption which is why the gov fines parents.Any child who turns up for a few months,leaves and then comes back again will cause a degree of disruption.

Mrs I have some neg views,we live in a democracy so I can voice them.

Retro? Can you answer my question about your earlier post re illiteracy, DV, Irish and English women? What were you getting at?

"Your personal hatred of an entire group" wrong and bullying.

Skyler you can read my post,pretty self explanatory and I'm now feeding my kids.

'Oh and I would like to point out any child who doesn't attend school causes disruption which is why the gov fines parents.Any child who turns up for a few months,leaves and then comes back again will cause a degree of disruption.'

I was a forces child. We did this a lot. I reckon that for many schools, our brief attendance boosted the IQ for a few months. We used to get into a number of fights with the indigenous population as well.

It is not an offence to not send your child to school.there is no legal requirement to do so.

It is only an offence to not educate them.

Silver I was a forces child too and you're wrong.Every move can set a child back 6 months and it is disrupting.I would have done a lot better if I a hadn't moved so much.Forces kids don't all tend to pitch up at the same time.

Mrs you are misrepresenting my posts.

Traveller Girls at secondary school age then. They are woefully absent from education.

If anyone says that's a generalisation then they're really talking their own book.

Coconutty nice.

Honestly Mumsnet, the "bun fight" ship has well and truly sailed on this thread, please just get rid of it.

You don't like real experiences Cushtie? You can't deny what's happened.

I'm afraid as this thread is so long, & seems to have become rather personal, I'm not going to go through it all.

I'm not surprised its heated as surely most people dislike the idea of anything that could be reasonably described as rascism/thoughtless or nasty prejudice but my own experiences of travellers are entirely negative, & as MNHQ pointed out, there is nothing wrong with relating factual specifics.

My DH had £50,000 of equipment stolen from his (then) small, new business. A few items were eventually recovered on a traveller site.
A number of his employees have been seriously assaulted when blocking gateways to fields (to prevent access).
He has been involved on a number of occasions in clearing up on behalf of landowners when travellers have been moved on. setting aside the horrendous mess left behind, is the fact that they came across horses in a terrible condition chained up and abandoned. The RSPCA were always involved of course.
I should add that the work that they have to do clearing up after the sites move on is only so that they can carry out the work they are actually paid to do by landowners.
The county that we live in is blighted by fly tipping. Convictions are regularly made of travellers for this offence.

In a nearby county, travellers were convicted for enslaving people.

I can only draw negative conclusions from these facts.

Cultures aren't automatically good. There a many examples throughout history of 'bad' cultures.

Retro trying to decipher your post - are you saying that 60% of English women and 80% of Irish women experience dv? Or were you talking about traveller women specifically? And this is a burden on the state? As is adult illiteracy?

It's really sad that your primary response to DV and adult illiteracy is to think of it in financial terms (likewise our earlier post re educational support for children with additional needs). A more compassionate response would be focused on the human beings whose lives are affected by these factors.

Not sure what you mean AlOuise. There's a lot of good, interesting debate on this thread but it's just descending into horrible name calling and nasty insults now. It's going round in circles and to continue it seems pointless. All that's going to happen is the insulting posts are going to be deleted immediately and what's the point of that. Don't know how you've managed to jump to the conclusion that I don't like "real experiences" or I'm trying to "deny anything".

What conclusions do you draw, Queen?

QueenoftheHolly my experience relating to travellers was very similar. Horrific.

It would be a shame to remove this thread, simply because the sorts of places where this stuff is normally spouted on the internet are run by and exclusively frequented by idiots. That means that the level of discourse would be one moron moaning about "fucking p--s" and then a whole series of equally limited people saying "yeah, fucking p--s."

Here, at least, you have most people striving to express their feelings without being racis. So, on one side, you have a place where some posters share their negative experiences of travellers- which you can see as a triumph for free speech, which doesn't get much of a look-in on many leftie sides these days. Then you have a large number of people balancing these views and entreating people not to generalise, not to simply hate a portion of the population based on their birth and culture- a triumph for humanity.

I'd be disappointed if this thread went up in a puff of smoke. Let's all channel Voltaire (or, rather, something popularly misattributed to Voltaire, natch):

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

MrsDv. A punch in the face is a horrible and violent experience and I hope that the perpetrator was caught, charged and sentenced.

I don't make excuses for the violent behaviour of anyone.

There are no excuses, no reasons whatsoever. Even if the perpetrators way of life has been seriously eroded over his lifetime.