To let you know the axe and machete girl WAS defending herself against her now convicted attacker.

[alittleprivacy]

A lot of posters here need to see the conclusion of this story about the clearly terrified child, that so many people were quick to be awful about. You all owe this extremely vulnerable child you participated in the defamation of, a massive fucking apology. I'm genuinely so angry about how so many grown women denigrated a hurt and scared child. Her fear was so evident in her voice and demeanor and so many mothers here were quick to throw her under a bus. Well you've all been proven wrong now, with the man she was trying to defend herself from found guilty of assault.

Honestly, just think about what you people did, defending a man who assaulted a child just because she was of a class you deem beneath you. I hope you're very, very ashamed and take stock before more girls like her suffer worse.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/bulgarian-man-guilty-of-assaulting-12-year-old-girl/a/156878498.html

I’m sitting in my ex council house with a banging headache from my fairly mundane job, having taken my child to his bang average state school.

You?

Same. There is a weird belief on MN that everybody on MN is from rich and privilged backgrounds. Some of us were raised on estates, where gang activity exists and have watched real and attempted grooming of children into that life. Know people who have seen and handled guns and know boys who feel they have to carry knives for protection.

And still did not resort to violence instead focusing on education and bettering ourselves to get to a point to where….

……MNers can accuse us of being privileged and having no knowledge of poverty of deprivation.

Folding my washing in my terraced house, I’m going to brave the rain and run to the newsagents on the corner block of the estate named the most deprived in England for 5 years running (I didn’t move far 😬)

Quote and Reply function. This:

So you chuckling about others trying to draw your attention to the trigger

Did not happen.

This girl didn't resort to violence, the grown adult man and his sister who attacked her did. Why are you pretending she was the violent one?

It's there. Just expand the thread replied to. Not assisting you further.

Nevertheless, I don't see how you can confidently proclaim that the man and his sister are not Muslims. Apart from the fact that the man referred to 'my god' in court, the pair could easily have Turkish or Roma ethnicity;

Islam in Bulgaria is a minority religion and the second largest religion in the country after Christianity. According to the 2021 Census, the total number of Muslims in Bulgaria stood at 638,708 [2] corresponding to 9.8% of the population. [3] Ethnically, Muslims in Bulgaria are Turks, Bulgarians and Roma,

Can you go back and read the post I was responding to.

Yes it is privilege, just like social services bothering to do anything about you is privilege (or random luck); plenty of referrals to social services go nowhere.

This girl is not just poor, she is a 12 year old whose sister had already been assaulted by somebody living and predating in the area. She clearly has zero adequate parents; she may be in the care of extended family but it is not adequate. You appear to have had a mother which is one out of two and that’s privileged/lucky too, compared to this girl.

You say “you’ve lived it” and I can only say I am sorry if you grew up in an estate where drug dependence was rife, and I am sorry if you had holes in your jeans and if your sister was assaulted by a known local predator. I am also sorry if you became the centre of a social media storm where you were vilified for this total lack of support or help from adults.

But I don’t think you have lived it because similarity is not the exact same and 20 years ago is not now. There’s a lot of evidence that a child only needs one adult to make the difference. I don’t think she has one, because by trying to defend her sister she is taking on an “adult” role. Her situation was desperate and “we” (the good adults) were not there.

And there is a massive difference in scale alone between a single little girl waving an axe around and huge mob violence.

No you keep claiming I was chuckling at something I was not.

If you can see how the quote and reply function works you can see the specific point I chuckled at. And it was not “this incident” as you keep falsely claiming.

So disingenuous THAT'S laughable.

Right, not deprived or abused enough.

Got it.

Must go back in time and fix that so I’m able to adequately share an opinion with a random person on the internet.

Oh do stop telling people what their lived experiences are and claiming you automatically know that girl has had it worse ffs

There's no objective evidence of what each party said to the other - whether the man made sexual comments to the girls, or whether the girls made racist remarks to the man. So we just don't know for a fact what was said, even if we think we do.

Luckily there was CCTV footage so we know for a fact that the man physically assaulted the girl, for which he has been rightly prosecuted and convicted. We also know for a fact that the girl was carrying a large knife and a hatchet (which she was originally charged with - I assume charges were dropped partly because of the assault and partly because of her age).

Nothing I've read mentions any ongoing trouble / history / background to the incident, so I don't know if that's fact or rumour?

I did. So when you said this, what were you referring to? What is the relevance?

And still did not resort to violence instead focusing on education and bettering ourselves to get to a point to where….

There would have been evidence in the trial.

The judge set out his sentencing remarks.

Or do you think the judge erred in his remarks?

The thing is being from chaotic, poverty stricken backgrounds without good role models is a consistent theme for children carrying weapons. Yet people generally have an issue with children carrying weapons so no idea why people here seem confused at people still finding issue with a child carrying weapons in this story.

I was referring to the entire post I quoted.

You quite clearly posted that you would not be happy allowing your kids to catch a bus on their own with any of their friends at all;

To be honest, in this day and age - no, I wouldn’t send my kids out to get on a bus somewhere.
I’d take them.
I think the days of independently and aimlessly just going out with your mates and making your own way around are over, and have been for some time.

My way of preventing a teen from getting harassed in a park is to not allow them to hang around in parks to begin with

They were walking to catch a bus. How do you know the girls were hanging around a park?

The irony is that the area I’m from is so drug dependent that my sister willingly took Rohypnol at 14, with her 25+ year old “friends.”

I think the real shame is that so many people equate poverty stricken backgrounds with violence and weapons that they’re perfectly willing to let that continue by claiming it’s a reason for it to happen.

The cycle never breaks, those kids end up in the exact same position their families and those around them did, and nobody ever wants or expects any better.

The previous poster didn't claim she was violent either, so what violence are you referring to? The only violent people in this situation were the man and his sister who attacked a child. Were you highlighting that irrelevant of his background, it was no excuse for him to be violent towards children and that youve managed not to despite your background? Or, as i strongly suspect, we're you just lazily suggesting the girl in this story was the violent one and her background/situation is no excuse for it?

I can’t say it any clearer - I wouldn’t allow my kids to catch a bus with their friends if an alternative was available.

We’re discussing a case that involves a predatory man, and a pre-teen with an axe, why would it be shocking news that I’d keep my kids away from both of those things?

The evidence was the testimony of the girls, which the judge was inclined to believe over the man's claims. There were no third party witnesses, and the CCTV only captured pictures not sound.

So there may have been sexual and/or racist remarks, but we can't state that as a fact.

It doesn't affect the outcome of the case, as the charges related to the physical assault, not anything that was said. But people keep repeating that the man was a sexual predator and I'm not sure there's any objective evidence of this, unless other posters know more than what's in the article?

"He was threatening me and saying sexy things...." "Ok, what did you do?" "Well I pulled out my axe and machete and...."

Not a typical response or solution, wouldn't you say??

Not deprived or abused enough for the complete empathy bypass and lack of information required to wang on about the guilt of a 12 year old with zero resources, no. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.