Boiled eggs on a train court case

[Iamthewombat]

Does anybody else feel sorry for the woman prosecuted for objecting (quite vigorously, I admit) to somebody eating smelly hard boiled eggs on an early morning train?

www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/city-worker-flew-into-rage-at-commuter-over-boiled-eggs-breakfast-on-train-from-chelmsford-to-a4284821.html

Because I do.

The boiled egg eater is the very definition of a drama queen. According to the story, she had already been told by a different passenger that the smell of her eggs was offensive but carried on regardless.

After being challenged by the woman who was later prosecuted, she pretended that she couldn’t speak English, then told the police about the altercation. Then pointed the other woman out to police when she saw her on the train five days later!

I know who I support, and it’s not the anti-social egg eater. Who apparently had to eat her eggs in a public place ‘because of her diet’.

I think the poster meant ‘anti-social’.

@DarlingNikita

But they sell food and drink

Not on a commuter train they don’t. You’re welcome

Very frequently the first thing I ask my clients is if they speak English. That way I know if I need to use a translation service or find materials in their first language. There's no point me rattling on if they have no clue what I'm saying.

Asking someone if they speak English is not in itself racist. Yelling it in someone's face probably would be but the article doesn't say the woman yelled or shouted.

A lot seems to hinge on whether the woman called the egg eater or the eggs 'disgusting'.

Either way, a hate crime is one which the victim perceives to be racially motivated, whether it actually was or not (in terms of reporting and prioritising by the police and CPS - they still need to prove it in court to get a conviction).

This quote is interesting:

Ms Stoter told the court that she said to the defendant: “Don’t you think you are quite old to be doing these kind of things?”

Despite being a protected characteristic in the Equality Act, age is not included in the hate crime legislation. Neither is sex, incidentally.

JavaQ

Not really sure why the ethnicity of your attackers is relevant - I was assaulted by a white male and the police didn't give a shit about that either.

She looked like she could have been South American to me. Not a race.

Um, Latina here. Do you think we are all Caucasian in South America?!

If I were eating something in a carriage and another passenger objected, saying it was offensively smelly, I’d apologise and put it away. I wouldn’t carry on regardless because ‘that is my diet’, and I wouldn’t play the victim when a second person challenged me. Oh yes, and nor would I pretend that I couldn’t speak English.

A hard boiled egg might take less than two minutes to eat. If you put it away the alleged smell would still remain, whereas if you ate it and were done with it, the 'smell' would quickly dissipate. Surely if challenged about eating such a small thing, the problem is solved by finishing it off?

Plus, where would you put it if you were to put it away? It comes in its own handy packaging, namely a shell, and once peeled you can't put it back. You would need a plastic bag or a little plastic storage bowl if you wanted to put it away.

Here's the answer to your issues, OP:
(from the Evening Standard)
Ms Stoter, who is originally from South America, told the court: “The woman asked me if I spoke English and I said no because I was scared and confused. I thought she would stop ...she said, ‘You are disgusting’.”

She claimed Mead threatened her, saying: “You don’t know who I am, be careful. Do you want to go outside?” Ms Stoter told the court that she said to the defendant: “Don’t you think you are quite old to be doing these kind of things?”

Mead claimed she had been taking medication that made the smell of eggs nauseating to her. Tough cheese imo. You can't call the egg-eater 'disgusting' regardless of your alleged medication. You go to another carriage (the train wasn't full apparently).
She denied losing her temper, but said she was “having my own private hell”.
LOL

The defendant wouldn't have leaned in close to the face of a white man eating eggs on a train, or called him disgusting, or implied that she was a person of importance, I'll bet.

And yes, seeing the photos in the Evening Standard article, the defendant Mead was way too old to be suggesting fisticuffs on a station platform over a hard boiled egg.

There are worse things than eating a hard boiled egg on a train and one of them is being a raging bully.

If you're going through such hell that you fly into rages and threaten people who annoy you, maybe avoid trains.

I love curry but not when someone stinks of it. This train absolutely pongs, and I don't think anyone is actually eating.

The worst thing is when smells are so strong they actually imprint on you. Once someone else was eating curry on a train, and I got off smelling of it, as someone else asked me if I'd been eating it.

There are worse things than eating an egg.

She was fined for threatening and aggressive behaviour, so not just protesting vigorously.

What do most of us do when we are in the company of other commuters eating smelly food on a train? Not shout at them surely.

The defendant was the one making a big fuss out of nothing, even if the egg eater was inconsiderate for eating eggs. No, can't say that I feel sorry for her at all.

Oh no! I've let my DS eat bolied eggs on the train before. They are one of the few things he will eat- he's a very fussy eater and I guess it would be a toss up between a hungry crying toddler or an egg smell. The space for a buggy on our trains is often located fairly near to a toilet, so I guess if people don't want to smell something they'd choose a different part of the carriage. I wouldn't eat or let him eat an egg sitting right next to someone.

She was fined for threatening and aggressive behaviour, so not just protesting vigorously.

This.

I can't believe that people are actually trying to justify her behaviour. How is there ever an excuse for behaving in an aggressive and threatening way unless in self defence? She didn't like the other woman eating an egg, well it's just unfortunate isn't it? There are lots of things that people do that I do t like but I don't go around screaming in their faces or offering them out.

I love curry but not when someone stinks of it.

shearwater, I understand this, but the problem is, if you are in a house where spiced food is being cooked, you end up smelling of it, and there's not a lot you can do about it. Even if you hang your coat in the hallway, your coat still smells of it.

And there's a whole history to the "eurgh, you stink of curry" thing. My ex grew up deeply self-conscious of this, absolutely hated it, it was a real source of bullying at his school. The first time I saw my then-small DS, the day after being at a family birthday, take a deep sniff of his coat and say with absolute enjoyment and satisfaction "aaaaah, it smells of Grandma's", it was such a massive relief that he doesn't have that shame at all. It helps that a lot of his friends come from, if not similar backgrounds, then analagous backgrounds, so it's not that unusual for them, either.

I don't know what the solution is. You can't wash your coat every day, but wearing it in the fresh air helps air it out. I don't see why anyone shouldn't cook the foods they like in their own home. Strangers don't want to smell you, fair enough, but there has to be some sort of mutual accommodation in a city with 10 million people, all living and working and travelling armpit-to-armpit.

The whole incident was awful but everyone remembers school bus trips where one kid stunk out the bus with egg sandwiches. It was the one filling not to take on the bus.
And my DD didn’t like bread when she was little and took boiled eggs to preschool. That halted pretty quickly at primary because of other kids commenting on the smell. It’s sort of ‘a thing’.

Not on a commuter train they don’t. You’re welcome

They sell food on plenty of commuter trains, including the Greater Anglia route that this incident happened on

Amazed this made it to court, all seems so melodramatic.

Boiled eggs stink, eating stinky food on public transport is inexcusable but it’s completely unnecessary to stand lecturing someone over it. Just pinch your nose or move to a different carriage.

No I don't feel sorry for her.

Next we will be told off for farting.

I think anyone who says 'Do you know who I am?' to back up thief argument is a first class idiot.

*their argument

Of course it's not ok to shout at someone who annoys you in public. Sounds terrifying.

One person's ambrosia is another person's nausea-button. Unless you ban all eating then you are always going to have problems.

This! I wonder what the replies would be like if it was a vegan losing thier shit over the smell of a bacon sandwich. We all have smells that we hate, I find some people's perfume absolutely rank or the smell of someone who has just smoked a cigarette, but I don't become aggressive or even comment to those people, because I'm not an arse

Probably not after nearly 5 years though.

I am flabbergasted the police actually investigated this and the CPS agreed to take this to court. I work I a field where crimes are regularly reported-some very serious and the police do nothing. This is incredulous when I thunk of the victims I've had to deal with.

What if it's a journey hours long? Train is by far the best way to do that and I can't see us going back to dining cars.