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AIBU?

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Original poster

About the woman who gave birth at Warren St Station

148 replies

TherightsideofHERstory · 20/01/2019 12:33

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46908685

AIBU to think that this type of shit is getting worse?

Glad to hear that Mum & Baby are well but wtaf is wrong with people?

Transport for London staff had provided them with some privacy by holding up a blanket protecting the mother from onlookers who walked past and started filming

Really? What actual thought process happens that someone sees a woman giving birth in a public place and their first thought is to get their fucking phone out and film her?? Angry

I despair of my fellow humans sometimes I really do.

OP posts:
GreatAuntMary · 21/01/2019 19:15

No, Jakeyboy1 - it's not different and it's not acceptable.

For the reasons given in my post.

Jakeyboy1 · 21/01/2019 19:21

@GreatAuntMary ok so CCTV taking a gang of rapists off the streets of a major city at the end of last year isn't acceptable? It was our CCTV that secured convictions of 3 rapists at the end of last year from a well known gang who had not been convicted previously. But if you don't think that's important fair enough...

StarJazmin · 21/01/2019 19:57

CCTV is in no way the same as members of the public filming people in distress and posting on social media. At all.

GreatAuntMary · 21/01/2019 20:02

I'm afraid you're being disingenuous, Jakeyboy1. Yes, now and again CCTV is partly responsible for the conviction of offenders in a court case.

After the event.

CCTV doesn't stop people being raped. It doesn't stop people being stalked and harassed to the point of depression, even suicide. It doesn't stop crime at all.

What is has done is ensured that the police service has been cut again and again on the grounds that if there is CCTV then there's less need for police patrolling our streets - and look where that has led.

In NO case has CCTV led to safer streets, shopping centres, walkways in high-density housing, etc. etc.

What is needed is properly trained and present police officers, security guards, caretakers, and the like. Let them wear recording cameras if necessary.

But don't hide dangerous cost-cutting by saying that CCTV is a replacement for these - and don't constantly infringe people's privacy by recording their every move and every private moment.

GreatAuntMary · 21/01/2019 20:05

StarJazmin - It's an invasion of privacy just the same. People in distress, like the poor woman who gave birth on Tube station premises, are filmed by CCTV cameras and the footage is out there, just the same.

It also frequently turns up on social media (and is sometimes used for 'private entertainment' by people who have access to it).

Ohnonotuagain · 21/01/2019 20:09

I feel that it is such an invasion of privacy to be filmed when helpless that it should be punishable by law
I couldn't agree more.

blackteasplease · 21/01/2019 20:11

The medical student sounds so lovely though.

But yes disgusting of people to film it.

DayManChampionOfTheSun · 21/01/2019 20:21

The tsunami that happened a few years ago, when people should have been running, lots of people got their phones out to start filming the sea being dragged back and the oncoming wave. Some people are fucking stupid.

Poor woman having to worry about pictures and videos being taken during a highly intense situation. But I revert to my first statement, some people are fucking stupid.

I hope she and babe are okay and this just becomes a funny story for her family in years to come

manicmij · 21/01/2019 20:44

All you hear nowadays is how busy and in such a rush folk are. Yet they find time to video others in such personal traumatic situations. Why? Unless the situation is likely to be a danger to others, or a crime then to me there is no reason whatsoever. Just hope they are in some kind of situation they would not wish to be filmed and someone does and posts it for all to see.

Justaboy · 21/01/2019 21:03

I wonder if TFL gave her son a freebie ticket for life to celeberate the event;?

I know a local petrol station gave the parents of a babe born out on their forecourt quite a bit of petrol was good publicity at that time;!

bringbacksideburns · 21/01/2019 21:06

* I don't think that people have changed for the worse, just that the opportunities to do this kind of thing have increased with the availability of the technology*

I agree - especially when you think they used to make a day of it to go and see someone get their head cut off or hung off a scaffold a few hundred years ago. There's always been a weird set of ghoulish people out there who get their kicks watching bad stuff. Its just that they have a phone in their hands these days.

I remember years ago in a bar with friends and a young man had a seizure and collapsed. My friends were helping him by putting him in the recovery position etc and a gang of people completely surrounded them blocking access for the ambulance. I remember shouting at them to get them to move and calling them a pack of vultures.
It's worth challenging them if you see it happening but obviously not if they look like they might get nasty and slap you one. But maybe in a calm manner remind them that's someone's child or parent they are filming and asking how they would feel if that was their family? I dunno.

ALittleBitofVitriol · 21/01/2019 21:46

I wonder if there could be legislation along the lines of the upskirting laws? Voyeurism to be changed to include protections for personal privacy in public spaces?

AlisonW1982 · 22/01/2019 07:23

@ALittleBitofVitriol that sounds feasible/a good start.

YouSayPotatoesISayVodka · 22/01/2019 07:36

I’m glad the mother and baby are ok thanks to that lovely student doctor I’m so glad he was there to help her!

It’s awful the way people behave during incidents by whipping their phones out to film but nosey Parker’s have been a thing for as long as I can remember and longer. Years ago an elderly lady had a fall in a shop I worked in and while we (myself, supervisor and security guard) helped her to
Carefully get up and on a chair not only was there a crowd of nosey people watching but a man in his 70s was trying to look up the poor ladies skirt Shock he wasn’t subtle at all! Security lead him away in the end.

HoraceCope · 22/01/2019 08:01

Its like when people take photos of people in hospital with appalling injuries. I always think, how could they.
Although when dd was a lot younger and had an accident which led to a black eye, she wanted a photo

but agree, I dont understand how people can think to film

Wigwambam10 · 22/01/2019 08:13

It need to be against the law to film someone else when they are vunerable

CurbsideProphet · 22/01/2019 08:39

It honestly depresses me to think how cold and dead inside a large number of people are. Mobile phones and social media must be causing a shift in brain chemistry. Why else would you want to film a stranger giving birth, a fatal traffic accident, or similar?

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 22/01/2019 08:50

HoraceCope - my brother was attacked and beaten in a brawl outside his place of work one Saturday years ago - we photographed his blackened eye and cuts and bruises to be used as evidence, nothing else. Of course the police didn't catch anyone (this was pre-cctv, let alone social media!) but at least we had the evidence of his injuries.

AlisonW1982 · 22/01/2019 08:56

I've reported this to MN HQ to ask them to consider campaigning on it.

SisterOfDonFrancisco · 22/01/2019 09:55

I agree that this kind of behaviour is nothing new except for the phones and spreading the images to a worldwide audience in mere seconds. Which of course is a horrible violation of privacy.

It's a well-known fact that in a large crowd you're less likely to get help as most people, probably yourself as well will assume that someone else has already called emergency number or is going to help in some other way. The only way to get people to help is to single them out as in " You with the blue shirt, call the 999" etc. It shouldn't be that way but unfortunately it is. Mostly people will just come and look.

allthechipsticks · 22/01/2019 10:38

Work for the ambulance service... one of the oddest things I've seen was at a cardiac arrest in someone's home one of the adult grandchildren filming us through the living room window doing full resus on grandad!

MrsPeel · 22/01/2019 16:23

The law can be a two edged sword- if it becomes an offence to film somebody in distress then who would record attacks against people that might help identify offenders or obtain convictions? As a side note I have found a distressing tendency whenever there is someone with an atypical english name committing a crime for people to say "I wonder where he comes from" in a dog whistle type way - its a shame there isn't the same sort of attention when, as in this case, a hero has a foreign sounding name.

GallicosCats · 22/01/2019 16:38

Police and HCPs who "live tweet" identifying details about people they attend in mental health crisis or after a sudden death, including details of the reasons for their distress and judgemental comments are just as bad.

Isn't that actual misconduct though? I'd be extremely surprised if, having been caught in the act, they were allowed to keep their jobs.

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