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 can see the police are in a cleft stick re protests/anger. Obviously some protesters have an agenda.

BUT there are the silent protesters. The women who now will be afraid on a night out, or even afraid walking home from work or the station.

Poor poor woman
She must of been terrified
I hope to god the police know what they are doing and actually catch the bastards .. hopefully they have CCTV and have a good idea of who they are

I dont live here but as im SW London it's been shared in my local groups, from thr start i couldnt believe the ineptness of the police, I woman was GANG RAPED and the police need to be seen to making this their priority, it seemed very low key even the day or so after. We've always had rape but gang rape has been increasing this century, thr police need to discover why this is and take steps to stop it.

Not realising details is insanely dumb, if they dont know (e.g the woman is blind) then they need to be saying that. Seeming to not care is why people take the law into their own hands. This church has car park ANPR I think so would he surprised if nothing is known.

There was a case in Sweden a few years ago where a taxi driver got away with raping a woman whose brothers ended up killing him. If police fail to act then this is a natural consequence.

To be fair some species of duck mate via gang rape....

And not packs roaming the streets.

I don't think anybody in their right mind would deny that white British men commit rape, however, this is a new thing.

You'd have to be of a culture that saw women as worth very little and treated very badly to think that you could get away with gang rape on the streets like this without penalty as if it's a normal thing to do.

Note: I say culture not race.

The woman WILL have given a description - for whatever reason the police are refusing to release it. I think if the woman had described the “men” as white with local accents - we would already have the descriptions released.

The lack of description IS the description.

Thats exactly the optics of this.

It might be very vague from the victim. it was multiple men, at night. If the woman was very distressed she might have shut down or dissassociated and only have vague memories. My friend was gang raped after being slipped rohypnol in a club. She remembered very little at all about the rapists.

I know this victim might remember race and people feel that would be helpful for the public to know, but maybe waiting a bit longer for more info would be even more helpful. Theres nothing to suggest the police arent investigating thoroughly.

For many reasons, the woman may not be able to give a description yet.

The police have repeatedly said they don't have the information at this time.

Instead of rioting / protesting, it would be best to wait and let the police do their work.

What exactly is rioting / protesting going to achieve? It's not going to make things move any faster, all it does it make life more difficult for residents and law enforcement.

I suspect they’re scrambling around trying to find the right way to release the descriptions without it causing a massive shit storm.

They're not withholding. They don't have it to withhold.

That organisation has been criticised for using dodgy statistics. Do you have a more reputable source @Pouffele?

I always think information like “the murderer was known to the victim” is helpful. It stops people worrying that a serial killer etc is on the loose. By withholding information naturally rumours abound.

How exactly do you withhold something you don't have?

Because if they “have no description” that means they apparantly have no idea who’s done it … meaning there are gang rapists currently walking around Epsom possible waiting for their next victim. Imagine having a young daughter in the area knowing these fuckers are still walking around? People are angry and they deserve answers. The area is crawling with CCTV - there is no way they don’t have at least a vague idea of who they’re looking for.

And how is rioting / protesting going to help that position? How is it going to help the police identify them?

Do you really think they're not trawling all the CCTV and leads they can get their hands on? Do you really think they're just sitting back and going "weeelllll, can't really be arsed to look"?

The stats come from an FOI issues to the Met Police @LakieLady
Are you saying the Met’s stats can’t be trusted?

Where's the government, girls being hunted down in daylight, seems to be more common. Has it increased or is it the focus of the media, even if there isn't more are they doing anything. I've not heard a peep from them. I'd like some data. Every week there's a horror story and they give the impression that women's physical safety isn't not a care for them.

Have a heart the young woman will be traumatised to the max.
What ever she says or doesn't say is private to her and what she tells the police.

They have had nearly a week to look at the CCTV - they need to release what they know so far.

Absolutely.

And what happens if what they know is nothing?

Well it doesn’t bode well.

Rapes increase when the sun comes out and we have longer days. The last frost hasn’t even passed. I really hope we don’t have a summer of this.

If this does turn out to be a gang of asylum seekers then honestly I am getting to the stage where I think we need to tag the men. Fuck it, I really don’t care about the human rights aspect. It’s not hurting them. Just their feelings and ability to commit crime unidentified and or abscond.

Fuck tagging them, they need deporting.

What annoys me is that they may not have enough data to ID these men, but they absolutely can issue data as to approx age, ethnicity etc - which, if they are white, would quell this. The fact that they do not serves to confirm the idea that it may be a non-white group of men. Obviously this may not be the case, but NOT clarifying this is insanity - esp when for decades the age/general appearance/whether they had an accent/skin colour has always been readily shared in news reports and public information updates.

The police and media are disingenuous if they feel that sharing will stoke racial unrest but NOT sharing will stem it.