To suspect police are worried about vigilantes - Epsom attack

[ReadingCrimeFiction]

I live relatively close to Epsom and so this appalling assault is all over my news feeds and social media.

BBC News - Town left in shock by appalling rape outside church
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8dl5yevjg9o

The police have asked for witnesses but no descriptions have been given. Cue lots of very disturbing posts and comments from people who very clearly think these men are not white.

I can think of half a dozen scenarios where this is not being disclosed but, based on the comments, I think it all comes down to fears that local communities will take it on themselves to "apprehend" anyone who even vaguely looks like the perpetrators? And while the comments I am seeing are mostly white people being disgusting in their assumptions about brown and black people, i can imagine police would he equally concerned if, for example, the woman was Asian or Black and her attackers were white.

Is this where we are at? Where people make horrible racist assumptions and/or where police have to worry about how they will protect the broader community if they give any details of criminals?

I always look at a racist profile snd A lot of these so called comments come from one sad troll or a couple of trolls , you can look at their profile and see there will be no posts or friends and are recently set up

sad that their are people like this

can you organise a positive response to this event , prayer vigil?

Yeah I’ve seen a lot of comments saying “bet we can guess who these are, always the same?”
some (obviously pissed off woman) replied to one saying “yes, MEN, always MEN”

Not the same noise from men if white men do it but as that woman pointed out the common denominator is men.

I suspect they’ll be very quiet if it is white men
they don’t even have the brain to google the statistics which shows it is majority white British men

That aside what a horrific ordeal for that young woman.

I missed that! I wish I had seen that one. Not least bwcause of all the 'animal" comments
Bullshit. Animals don't behave this way.

You know this country is fucked when riot police turn up in Epsom.

I wouldn't describe Epsom as a shit hole but it does seem to have a bit of a white underclass.

I am assuming they are not disclosing details because they are still collecting witness statements and wanting more witnesses to come forward and do not want them to be influenced in any way.

Surely not issuing descriptions of the alleged perpetrators feeds vigilantes. The usual suspects will suspect asylum seekers or similar and it will result in what we have seen tonight.

I live close to Epsom and have seen a lot of the comments on SM. I could be wrong but I thought that the perpetrators were in the night club and left around the same time as the victim and followed her? So the police must have CCTV footage from the nightclub to know this, and therefore the race of the perpetrators.

Epsom is demographically very white isn't it? And I don't think there are many areas local to Epsom that are not? Having said this, there was a group last year hanging Union Flags up along the main roads into Epsom and Sutton which received a lot of local support - we drove past them hanging flags and there were a lot of car drivers tooting their horns in support. So it doesn't surprise me that there is this backlash and I don't blame the police for being cautious.

Regardless, we must remember the poor victim of a horrific crime who has to try to live with what has happened to her. I wish her well in her recovery and whatever the colour of their skin I hope they find out who attacked her and they get the full force of the law against them.

There's been a protest in Epsom about this and police riot squad called in. Very helpful to the investigation, not. What is the matter with people?

The police are doing house to house questioning and going through reels and reels of cctv footage.

Protesting is not going to hurry things up, especially as protests need policing!

The general public are not usally that intelligent and no not buying this ''just men" nonsense whenever theire are riots plenty of women join in especially the looting and criminal damage

I am in a town local to Epsom. The protest was shared on local fb page. Seems to have been linked to a guy who is all over local fb organising ‘patriotic’ marches. Nothing racist about him of course just standing up for traditional ‘British’ values.

someone did link to a newspaper report where he was done for a £100k insurance fraud so he seems like a nice upstanding guy…….

These are the scenarios whereby the police know that they are creating a vacuum people will fill and are making a conscious decision to do so. I think that’s dangerous in itself, but very much a problem they’ve faced on other cases. Poor girl, so absolutely awful and utterly traumatising. I don’t care what race they are, they should be put a rat infested prison and key thrown away. She will never get over it.

More to the point, you know this country is fucked when a woman is raped by multiple men in the grounds of a church !!

I heard there is a hotel housing asylum seekers which people were already blaming for an uptick in crime. No idea if this is actually true though.

Just an awful story and I hope the perpetrators actually face justice.

The police either have no clue or know, and are waiting to release descriptions due to the demographic, because if they knew AND they were white, English men, the police would Have already announced it.

After the shit show that was the Southport riots, the police were told that the ethnicity of arrested suspects must be revealed. It seems odd that after nearly a week there doesn't seem to be ANY kind of description. Most UK towns are teeming with CCTV and ring doorbells these days. So its all very strange that given the passage of time since the attack, the police have NOTHING 🙄

I lived there many moons ago. It’s really unsettling to see these events. Riot police on the High Sreet!

This is my take, too. The police clearly must know something about the attackers and the decision not to release it creates a vacuum. We never learn.

I suspect many people there were not even from local area - I am in other side of Sutton Borough and it was shared widely here on social media. I have noticed (disappointingly) over the last 12 months there is definately a large subset of people who buy into this narrative - certain areas of the borough had a shedload of flags up when that was the topic of the moment.

People in glass houses……….The poster was clearly saying that men are always the rapists, not that men are always the protestors.

This tinder box has literally been created by the authorities. Before there were police there were vigilantes. If the police no longer police then people step into the void. The authorities are failing the country and so people are starting to try and protect their own communities. If we don’t progress then we start to move backwards instead.

What ‘narrative?’

By creating an information void (just like Southport) it will create this narrative. They must have CCTV so WHY are then not releasing a description of the attackers???? This would surely help with enquiries. I suspect that this means they are not white and fuel the flames of a very divisive country at the moment. There needs to be a serious discussion on violence against women and what is fueling this uptick in crime. If it is through immigration then we need to look at our whole system. Women should not have to live like this.