When you see a child being treated horribly

[Bortles]

What are you actually meant to do that's effective? In a public space, you dont know them or their names. What is the actual official advice in this situation? Who would you report it to and how?
I seem to be a magnet for this at the moment. One incident in a supermarket, horrible huge man being over the top scary shouty to his small children both under 5. It was all the way round the shop and quite terrifying.
Today, girl (I thought was a teen mum) hitting her little brother about 7 with a metal trike. I called her out and she went mad and started screaming at me, came back with her family, luckily I was driving away at that point. But honestly, what are you supposed to do? I dont mean that in a shrugging shoulders way, I mean is there a phone number or a proper way to go about reporting this stuff when you dont really have enough detail?

@Newgirls

All these posters saying report it. To who? How?

And turning a blind eye in case it makes it worse. What if ignoring makes it worse? The adult thinks it’s ok to carry on?

Or the child gets an even worse beating when they get home because now the parent is REALLY angry

So you’d happily ignore?

Each council will have a safeguarding advice line , AFAIK this is always open to the public. Look it up and keep a record of it in case you need to report.

@Newgirls

All these posters saying report it. To who? How?

And turning a blind eye in case it makes it worse. What if ignoring makes it worse? The adult thinks it’s ok to carry on?

I said upthread in an emergency 999. Otherwise Google your local MASH or Google youtown local council child safeguarding team... they all publish numbers and email addresses where you can report issues too.

How do you know who the person is? Do you just describe them? Would police really come out?