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?

Yes, the vacuum always creates issues.
i understand the victim was followed out of the nightclub, if they know that, surely they must know who these people are - because otherwise how would they know they followed her outside from a night club.

What is her name, please? I would like to watch this for myself.

Just checked - Merseyside Police statement issued the same evening;

We would ask people not to speculate on the circumstances surrounding tonight’s incident on Water Street in Liverpool city centre.

We can confirm the man arrested is a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area.

https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2025/may-2025/update-police-incident-water-street-liverpool-city-centre/

Perhaps I've misunderstood but isn't one of the points to draw from that is that there is an unacceptable level of "unknown ethnicity" among the stats?

eg "Unknown ethnicities in data sources
The recording of ethnicity data varies across sources and will reflect the operational nature of these systems, as data comes from multiple administrative databases or survey data. Where ethnicity information is unavailable with an unknown or not stated ethnicity, this information is not included in the analysis. High levels of missing ethnicity data limit the ability to provide conclusive results and findings may differ from experiences."

Again perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought one of the findings of the inquiries into child sexual exploitation and abuse was that offender ethnicity data was not always collected or was recorded as "unknown"

Great post, agree totally.

I also feel that in some cases 24/7 news culture hasn't helped. I understand people in the local area wanting instant news of course, but people in general demanding instant description reminds me of the train attack and the huge anger when information on whether the attacker was an immigrant wasn't immediately released.

In the past you by necessity had to wait for information to some extent at least.

Gang rape by white men isn't unknown either. But I agree that it's more common in other demographics.

They are trying to manage the situation and to me that means it’s likely the perpetrators are likely to be ethnic minority. Yeah yeah it’s always men. Yeah yeah most rapists are white- but if you adjust for population composition by ethnicity then some groups are over represented. Pakistani men in grooming gangs. Afghan men and other Muslim asylum seekers in raoe cases.

Yes. But the point I was responding to is that pp claimed such data is not collected at all. It is, although obviously very imperfectly and efforts are being made to improve. Data specifically on grooming gangs is now collected and published, again improvements are slowly being made

It should be crystal clear to any decent person that if they know the ethnicity they should release it and anyone fitting the description of suspect should be reported..

At the same time, mob vigilantism, beating people up, making people feel under threat purely for the colour of their skin, is not acceptable.

The question is, if the police say it's a black or brown man as soon as they know (presuming they know now), will there be a riot and/or violence?

It is really disgusting that people want to prove something about 'British men' vs 'migrant men' and rapes.
Does the behaviour of British men in other countries count? Like Thailand and Morocco? How about white allies doing war crimes, are they welcome here?
What makes a man 'unBritish'? How many generations settled here? Religion? Looks?
Have you factored in whether war-traumatised men or men from violent homes (including British) behave differently?

Out of interest what will you say if they are right and it is a man/men who is/are currently awaiting his/their asylum claim to be processed? We know how you feel about disgusting, racist white people I just wonder how you feel if all those disgusting racist’s stereotypes are accurate this time?

I’ll tell you what’s disgusting @OtterDoBetter . White liberals making an apology for and minimising the misogyny and violence against women inherent in some cultures, when it spills out into our streets as seen in Rotherham and subsequently most major cities in our country ( grooming gangs). When unaccompanied Afghan teenagers are given asylum and then rape a teenage girl who is just hanging out in a park, because they come from a place where women only go out under full body cover ( so obviously they are asking for it) , and if they are raped they are expected to commit suicide. Do we have an obligation to take in such men because they are “ war traumatised “? I don’t think so.

We can care about all of it equally.

I am happy to see a white pedophile lose his liberty having raped children in Thailand and be equally happy to see a man from abroad be locked up for raping a British girl.

In fact if you pushed me a bit more I’d tell you that I’d be happy to contemplate a bill that allowed for chemical castration of pedophiles and if you pushed me a bit more I’d probably have a long hard look at something even more severe punishment wise but sadly the bleeding heart liberals would go back to hand wringing about hurty things and we’d get nowhere with that.

Do you know how many women girls are raped every year in the UK? Google it? You won’t believe it and you’re getting your knickers in a twist and your panic and your paranoia you’re being ridiculous.

The police would definitely need to avoid lazy labels, you're right @PrettyDamnCosmic. I think most people would use 'Black' and 'Asian' to describe race, not ethnicity.

Violence and misogyny is inherent in the white British man look at the statistics for rape victims and murder victims

What on earth sort of reasoning is this?! You deal with the issue in front of you; you don’t conduct a kind of universalist assessment of everything, and then make sure you’re politically in the right place, before you decide whether something is bad or not.

To be fair, based on the list of 50 names in the Pelicot case, it would be difficult to say that white French men were over represented without profile photos. You have probably made an assumption here yourself.

You cannot say all Afghans are of one culture.

If I meet Prince Andrew or Wayne Couzens or Peter Stringfellow or Peter Tatchell, have I met 'British culture'?

You do not know if I am white or liberal (I have only been assaulted by white British and European people in the UK, but do not make any big claims about the cultures).

Does anyone remember when Liam Neeson went out looking for ANY black man to attack because his white female friend had been attacked by one person who was black and male? Spoiler: public sympathy was for Liam Neeson, who told this story about himself and what a good guy he was for...not attacking some random stranger.

Do we want that kind of persecutor mentality here?

Issue is what makes men rape and which men rape. Totally on point.

Sure there are plenty of unsavoury white men. My point is we shouldn’t be importing more men from places where gender violence is normalised, or delude ourselves about the danger posed . I grew up in a Muslim country and the sexual harassment I suffered was relentless from about age 8. I’m not advocating going full Trump, but as we’ve seen this week the asylum system is massively abused, and some nationalities are too risky. Certainly if found guilty of sexual or any other kind of violence they should be deported. The police , social services, politicians should not be gaslighting us when recently arrived ethnic minority men commit sexual assaults.

@OtterDoBetter you are aware of the status of women in Afghanistan?

You mean the ones we do not support the way we support Ukrainians?

Maybe we should stop going to war all over the place.

I can agree with that.

Does anyone remember when Liam Neeson went out looking for ANY black man to attack because his white female friend had been attacked by one person who was black and male? Spoiler: public sympathy was for Liam Neeson, who told this story about himself and what a good guy he was for...not attacking some random stranger.

Of course our sympathy should have been for the black man who raped his white female friend.

He admitted to wanting to attack a black someone, he didn't actually do it and he had no need to tell anyone, it was 40 years in the past, for that matter. I'm not sure he got sympathy, plenty of people condemned him so please provide evidence the public were mostly sympathetic.