16 month old assaulted should i have expected more support from the police?

[Absc]

Feeling shaken up tonight a drunk person hit me, pushed my 3 year old over and my 16 month old who was in his pram she pushed the pram over i couldn't do anything to stop it happening. He did hit his head on the floor.

We have spent four hours at hospital who have said they don't think he has any significant head injuries. He has pre existing conditions that mean any head injuries have to be seen in a&e as he has false signs already for a bleed in brain etc so signs to look for concern are already there on him. At five months old he had an emergency mri with drs thinking he had a bleed on the brain.

This was at a family event. The attack was by a completely unknown person who doesn't live in the village. It took the police 33 minutes to attend. The dispatcher said they were coming from the local station 4 minutes away. By this point the woman had now disappeared. She had made further threats of harm - she had told people apparently we were pushing in and that's why she turned around and hit me then went for my children. We were in fact trying to find my son's friend who had walked off and with 400 people there it was difficult to see. The organisers were in the main area where we were heading to ask for assistance.

I don't know if i'm in the wrong but i feel very let down by the police not attending until too late, they said that they would have no chance of trying to find the person now and would only look if someone had significant injury. To me this is clearly a very volatile person and this happened to us they could well do this again. They said they would call in a few days time to check the child has no further injuries. My other child was literally telling the police that he had been pushed over by a lady and that she had chucked a drink at him. Police response we don't need or want to speak to the child.

Or is this now what society has turned into and is it normal to go to family events and have aggressive people / drunk people at 6pm in the evening.

Grandparents live by us i am
a solo parent and didn't think it was appropriate for me to take him into a&e knowing we wokld be there for 4 plus hours and that environment isn't ideal. I didn't want him seeing saturday night drunk people, or any distressed children / teens in a&e.

Completely understandable, and lucky they were so close op. I’m so sorry this happened to you and your little dc. It is disgraceful and very upsetting.

Horrific that this happened, but I don’t think the response time is awful

I have seen this happen. It’s like everyone expects someone else will do something and they are just watching. I recall years back coming out of a meeting and a colleague who was known to be unwell had collapsed just moments before and was having a fit. So many people were just standing around looking worried/shocked but no one had actually done anything. I sent someone to get the onsite occupational health person who would have his medical details while I phoned for an ambulance and moved stuff away from him so he couldn’t hit it while having the fit with a couple of colleagues. Once I started doing something most people snapped right out of it. I think with having arrived after he’d collapsed I avoided the initial shock of it so wasn’t left frozen where they were just stuck at something so unexpected happening. but it was such a weird thing.

I don’t think the police time was unreasonable. It wasn’t life and death.

I think if anything the fault lies with the organisers. Why was there no security at an event that size? Why was she allowed to leave the event? Why did no-one else intervene?

I’m sorry that happened to you and hope everybody is ok. 28 minutes as an emergency response is unfortunately not unheard of. They may not have been in the police station 4 minutes away, they could have been out responding to something or they could have been at the station but dealing with something else. Sometimes there are very few officers available to respond, sign of the times.

OP that sounds really awful. I hope you are feeling a bit less shaky today. Definitely put in a complaint. It’s a serious thing to push over a pram with a small child in it and the consequences could have been dire. It may well be the police lack the resources to do anything but that doesn’t make the overall situation acceptable and maybe complaints are one of the things that help highlight the inadequacies in the current level of “service” (I’m sure there is a better word to use but can’t think what it is) the police are able to offer

Hope you and your kids are okay and able to live on from this appalling attack. What low life pushes two kids to the ground? Sending lots of good wishes to you and your family

You mean like why it hasn't made the news?

This is just awful. I’m not surprised in the police response to be honest but I wish your family all the best.

Adding police dispatcher solidarity! It’s utterly shit and no one in the service is able to do the job the way it should be done due to lack of resources

If it takes that long then there is a problem with the whole system

Maybe if they actually investigated all crimes it would actually make their jobs easier because only a tiny percentage of people actually commit most of the crime

Why are they waiting until someone is actually killed or seriously hurt before doing something

My car was stolen by what I was told was a prolific car thief. When they found it the guy had left his mobile phone and glasses in the car.
Along with a lot of other identifying stuff

Police were not interested. They would rather waste time filling out 3 lots of paperwork each week (the amount of cars he regularly steals)than spend a little time taking this guy off the streets altogether

Unless you were there you have absolutely no idea as to whether circumstances would have allowed this person to be stopped without others being hurt, so put your righteous indignation and accusatory tone away.

Put it out on social media asking for witnesses?

Maybe you should actually read what that poster wrote and stop blaming the police themselves for the lack of resources they’re forced to work with.

It was clearly a firework do. Not very bright are you?

It doesn’t matter if a station is 4 minutes away, officers don’t sit in there waiting for a call! 33 minutes is good for a Saturday night when you have probably half a dozen officers covering huge areas and populations.

Also expect it to get worse with Labour in their wisdom granting pay rises to be funded by the forces with no extra money who are having to freeze recruitment.

Police are not in a position to respond instantly. They also have the workload from their current and previous shifts with people complaining they haven’t been visited for days, that’ll be because they are excepted to answer calls in visit current jobs inbetween.

It’s pretty shit out there for them, most of them are also parents and would be just as angry.

I agree with this general approach to finding witnesses. But I suggest you ask the organisers and/or police to do it. If a woman’ capable of assaulting you and the children, who knows what else she’s capable of if she sees your social media.

I’d also complain to the police. You were all assaulted and any of you could have been seriously hurt, especially a baby with pre-existing conditions pushed over in a pram and hitting their head.

This must have been really shocking. It’s no wonder you’re shaken. And it must be even harder as you’re a lone parent, with no partner to comfort you and the children. Take it easy and ask your family and friends for support. Remember to notify your employer and the kids’ school/carers. Thinking of you 💐

This is bollocks. Your kids are hurt and in need of medical attention while you’re rolling around on the floor exacting revenge ?! Do me a favour. This is a police resourcing problem and taking the law into your own hands isn’t going to solve that. Maybe stop watching Stephen Segal movies.

Personally I would contact the police and complain and ask what they have done. I presume this was in the dark hence no one intervening. Or knowing what was going on. I’m so sorry you have gone through this. What kind of person lashes out at strangers and hurts children is beyond me. It says a lot more about her than you.

You mean like why it hasn't made the news?

Why hasn't it made the news?
Why hasn't it been shared far and wide across social media?
Why wouldn't a single one of the 400 other guests step in to intervene if a child and baby were being assaulted?
How come it was a family event but nobody knows who this woman is?
How come the police sound so reluctant to try and find this crazy psychopath gatecrashing random events and assaulting babies?

Reading the original post it all sounds very traumatic and, if that's what happened then it's truly awful. but I'm not naive, we are getting one side of a story here.

@FedupMum2024

I would have probably attacked her too, but we are all different and the OP didn't do anything wrong, she was the victim.

I'm appalled the police were not interested in finding this violent person. People who use violence escalate over time. She needs arresting for assault or next time she does something it won't be shock and a few hours in A&E some unsuspecting family has to deal with.

It’s not because they are not interested, the car was found I presume from what you have said and the Courts give no shits, he wouldn’t be remanded.

You make it seem so simple so go out on a shift and see what it is really like, you’ll have a huge reality check.

A recovered car isn’t a priority, Police can only be reactive and not proactive, the system as you say is a huge problem.

Officers are committing suicide and leaving with the average response experience being around two years because they are leaving.

They have to follow the priorities which are set by the Gov, such as VAWG. Which again is not supported by the Court.

Making it seem so simple shows just how disconnected the Public are to the reality.

When people ask for info on incidents in my fb group, someone often says 'don't put the footage on the group' - once they're public they can't be used to prosecute. Not sure of legalities/what counts but maybe ask them to send them to you, not post them up.

Some groups allow anon posts too, if that makes it easier.

Not a nice incident to happen when you are just out trying to enjoy yourself!