To wonder if sainsburys should have done anything about this woman?

[CundtBake]

I was picking up a few bits in my local sainsburys yesterday, and as I went to pay I noticed a woman was quite distressed at the customer service desk (which is next to the self service tills)

I overheard a member of staff ringing someone saying the woman couldn't find her child. It seemed as if the woman was just very panicky but it quickly became obvious she was also quite drunk (this was half 3 in the afternoon).

As soon as the man had come off the phone she spotted her child and charged through a queue of people and started walloping him. And I mean really aggressively, running around with her hands raised hitting him all over his face and body shouting at him. There was a kind of synchronised gaps from everyone that saw as she marched him out of the shop still going.

The child was in a primary school uniform so id guess he was around 10 years old. Now I only have a toddler and I admit I don't know the official laws on smacking but it's not something I'd ever do. I can understand the frustration mixed with relief she must have felt but her reaction was so extreme.

When id paid for my shopping (and I had been scanning and packing the whole time, I wasn't just standing there gawping!) I went over to the member of staff and asked if perhaps he should report it to someone, after all they'd have it on CCTV etc. he said he wasn't sure and he'd find out but it would probably be best to just leave it.

Everyone else in the shop that saw it seemed shocked and there were a few comments of 'child abuse' and things like that but they were followed by little (perhaps shocked) laughs so I genuinely don't know if i overreacted by thinking something should be done.

Aibu?

it's not hard to distinguish - if it leave a mark it's abuse - if she's drunk in charge of a child it's also abuse

Shame on us indeed handcream

I interevened in a shopping center, a woman was hammering her son. He looked about 8, and had wandered off. Another woman came over as well, when the security guard came he lead her away, he had phoned the police.
If you saw an adult being assaulted surely you would phone the police then? A child is no different.

It is a safeguarding issue and needs reporting to local Child protection team or NSPCC

IF she was drunk - not only is it physical abuse but also potential neglect

I sincerely hope you report this Op. What's the point in starting a thread if you're not going to?

I agree with everyone else. You should ring the police and report this.
You will have the time from your receipt. The supermarket should have CCTV.
The woman light be known to the police and as.
That child needs help

Good for you Coco . I hate all the tutting that goes on in situations like this. Either do something or don't even bother to tut!

Who cares what the fucking laws are, you're not a Judge, that's for the police etc to decide (i.e. whether the laws have been broken).

How THE ACTUAL FUCK a shop full of people allowed a violent, aggressive, distressed and intoxicated woman to leave with a child is beyond me.

Big society, my arse.

Shame on you OP. You all watched someone being attacked and humiliated and you just carried on with your shopping. You should have told her to stop. Who is standing up for that child? Who is making that child know that not all adults are bad people?

Phone the police, CundtBake - you don't need to decide whether what she did was illegal - that is their job, and it is what they are trained to do. They can request the CCTV footage, and see exactly what happened, and talk to the staff in the store.

But the sooner you do it, the better. The incident will be fresher in people's memories - and I don't know how long Sainsburys keep their CCTV footage, but the quicker it is dealt with, the better.

Fwiw, I can understand, to some extent, why the OP didn't intervene - there's been research done about how crowds of people tend not to intervene, until one person does, plus she was somewhere where there are plenty of staff around, including security guards, whose job it is to deal with things like this, and I can understand that subconscious nervousness about overstepping the bounds. Not to mention justifiable concerns about taking on a drunk and violent person. Not saying it was the right decision, but there are extenuating factors, I think.

We all hope, and assume we'd intervene in something like this - and someone should have stopped her, but it isn't always as easy as it seems from behind a computer screen.

I hope the reason the Op hasn't come back is because she is on the phone to the police

There have been a few threads about Sainsburys lately, who'd have thought this sort of thing goes on in there.

Where the hell was the Security Guard?

Unless you don't need them in Sainsbury's.

If it was illegal to be drunk in charge of a child, every holiday camp would be closed down across the UK, barbecue's wouldn't happen etc.

I carnt understand how anyone could stand there and watch. One poster mentioned stopping an attack on a dog.

I think more people would step in to protect an animal, than they would a child and they certainly wouldn't laugh about it afterwards.

it's is a known phenomenon called bystander apathy. We all like to think we would intervene in these situations but it has happened numerous times , and far worse crimes. Rapes have been witnessed in public and people don't stop it. They stand agape. The phenomenon was dust studied after a woman was raped on her own doorstep and people looked out their windows to her scream but did not help.

experiments (with actors) show the more people witnessing it, the stronger the effect. It is as if responsibility to act is diffused. a sort of 'of no one else is intervening then that must be the right thing to do'. There is also the element of shock at what they are witnessing that makes people unable to act or unsure what to do. .. until afterwards when they feel guilt and shame at not having acted.

For psychologists this is one of those clear cases where what we say we would do and what we would actually do can differ quite greatly.

so there is little point in rounding n one the op about what age SHOULD have done. I'm sure she feels terrible enough having witnessed it. I like to think I'd have acted, but bystander apathy is powerful.

birds it is illegal to be in sole charge of a child. I don't know the age limits, but it is.

I agree with the theory Nutella but surely once home and certainly after you'd asked for opinions where everyone says 'report' you would do something ?

Could you recognise the school uniform? Could be they've noticed signs too and that cctv could help - would report it to the police, dial a non emergency number or walk in and make a statement, no doubt she only 'lost' the child because she was drunk and then he gets the blame. I expect it happens all the time at home, too.

I once witnessed a grandfather attacking his grandson, belting him and shaking him so hard his head was hitting the back of his shoulders.

I physically put myself between him and the child, and stayed there until he was clear that I'd ring the police if he resumed his actions. Funnily enough he didn't seem so keen on the idea of hitting a grown adult who was taller than him.

Tutting and gasping does fuck all to protect a child. People need to act. YOU should act. Report the incident to the police.

CB, I think it would still be worth phoning the police but I can understand your hesitation at the time. I've also been in a situation where the fact that nobody else seemed to be doing anything kind of convinced me that nothing was that seriously wrong (and the person I was with actually said "they're only playing" - someone was left with a bleeding nose! Not a child though.) It was in a very crowded place and I'm now convinced that if I'd just made the first move, even if it was just saying to the person being hit, "Do you need any help?", lots of other people would have joined in and stopped what was going on. I've always promised myself that if a similar thing happens again I will step in.

Don't beat yourself up about anything you didn't do at the time - you did at least do something by trying to get the member of staff to report it - but do report it to the police now, and don't be afraid to speak out another time - as others have said it often does just take one person to stop something like this.

The sad reality in these situations is everyone witnessing it is waiting for someone else to act.

The net result in most cases is no one does.

This was assault and if she had hit an adult stranger the police would have been called.

Please report this to the Police OP. I don't stand in judgement about your actions at the time - the fact you actually asked the security guard is a step way ahead of anyone else it seems, but I think you need to go a step further.

Yes, report it. It is a safeguarding issue, a pretty big one of that is her behaviour in public. On the smacking front, it is not illegal in England, but at recent training we were reminded they don't always go on the "leave a mark" thing (tho def on the using an implement), because some children mark easily (objectively speaking, and including accidents not only smacking),and others have been known to take a fair beating and have barely a mark on them :-( sad but true. so social services have to look at the whole picture, and in this instance alarm bells would be ringing. Calling now will still help, and it may well be that SS are already aware of the family.

Did you recognise which school the child was from? If you are not prepared to report it to the police, at least tell the school. highly likely this is not the first time this has happened and they will know the parent in question. Haven't managed to read the whole thread but if the woman was obviously drunk, the laws (or not) around smacking children are irrelevant, you should not have let her leave the shop with him.

"birds it is illegal to be in sole charge of a child. I don't know the age limits, but it is."

If there is an accident, then the law can be applied, but the only action generally taken is a referral to SS and then family support.

The child was 10, there wouldn't be a reaction to the Mother being drunk. There would be even more sympathy for the Mother if she is an addict.

The law is only applied to infants, to direct Local Policy, but again it isn't actually used, unless a child is injured/killed.

No-one could of stopped her from leaving, you would be on dodgy ground.

999 could of been phoned and a description given in, this would be picked up straight away if a Security Guard did this.

Unless you are trained in C& R and fancy an assault conviction, it wouldn't of been possible.

Please report this OP. It's not too late to help that child.

As far as I am aware, giving a child a smack on the bum or a quick slap around the legs or on the hand without leaving a mark is not illegal in the UK if you are a parent or in loco parentis (this does not include schoolteachers etc but perhaps a grandparent who has the child staying with them)

Please someone correct me if this is wrong.

It doesn't mean I condone this and I don't hit or smack my children, this sounds more like lashing out and if she was drunk (allegedly - nobody really knows, she just seemed it and perhaps smelled of it) - that is a worry, but once again I'd imagine the law is fairly grey on being drunk in charge of a child unless an incident happens (probably more than an assault without any marks or injuries).

So it is a tricky one and if this has left you feeling concerned I would suggest you do what other posters have said and mention it to the police or social services. I might be wrong or cynical but I'm not certain the police will take it too seriously but social services may. No idea if I am right on that or not its just my hunch.