AIBU to refuse apologising after being blocked in at Tesco?

[ThisIsAbsolutelyCrazy]

So, yesterday I go to Tesco with DH. DH is a wheelchair user and has a Blue Badge.

There were no disabled bays or parent and child bays so I went to a far corner of the car park where there were two empty rows of normal bays and parked between 2 bays so had room for DH to get in and out.

Lo and behold we came back to a car parked so close to my driver's side that I couldn't get between the cars - less than 10 inches in between. The car had parked over into the bay I had half parked in.

We were obviously WTF. The other bays around us were still empty.

Coming round to the front of the cars, we saw there was a young lad no more that 15-17 sitting in the passenger seat of the other car. He obviously couldn't get out of his door either because it was up against mine! I said 'what kind of idiot would park like this' or some such. He said 'my dad'. Then asked him why he'd blocked him in.as well. He didn't answer and just kept his head down. I will admit I did swear a bit saying for fucks sake, this is fucking disgusting. Then said 'tell your Dad he's a complete cunt'. At no point did I make threats to the lad or swear at him. I knew he didn't park the car.

Anyway I then climbed in through the passenger side, moved the car into the row in front, got DH in and we left.

The Dad had not come back. I'm kicking myself because I didn't take a picture of the way he'd parked.

Anyway, tonight at around 8pm there's a knock at the door and two policemen are there. My heart dropped because I thought it was about one of the DC (both were out with friends), but they said they'd had a complaint about me causing 'fear and alarm' to a minor!

Turns out the Dad must have already had my reg number and told the police what I'd said. No mention of how he'd blocked me deliberately and left his son trapped in the car!

He must have known whoever came back to the car would be angry!

Anyway police said I could make a formal apology to the boy and the matter would not be taken further - this was because I admitted swearing.

I said No I will not as I had figured out by then that the Dad had done this all deliberately. No clue who he is.

AIBU to think he must be an absolute psycho?

Especially to leave his son trapped in the car!

It could easily have been either or both. It's chilling to think about what can happen when people choose violence and aggression to try to 'resolve' relatively minor disputes.

Teenagers with balaclavas on, on pedal bikes/off road bikes wind people up and swear at them up & down the country, daily.
The police don’t go around telling them to apologise.
Im with you - but my DH is paraplegic and barely leaves the house due to the nightmare behaviour of bloody people when you are in a wheelchair. So I utterly understand your frustration.
Its just another thing that made your life a bit harder -and it was done by a nasty cunt, on purpose.

I wouldn’t apologise either. Take me to court.

Would you call the police to report a woman doing that to your son?

I can’t even imagine the scenario seriously - I’d like to report a crime. A woman has just called me a cunt through my son for simply blocking her and her husband in because I parked my car over the line so she couldn’t open her car door. Why? Bc I had to teach her a lesson! Yes she was driving her disabled husband. He was in a wheelchair. My son was in the car because somebody had to be left to witness the justice I was dishing out on behalf of all the other drivers who didn’t want to use the abundant empty spaces that were available - why should they? It’s my right to park where I want!

Ppl like him make my blood boil - going out of their way to prove a malicious point (while getting it wrong) then being the first to leap on the defensive to the extreme by involving police. He’d be the dickhead customer riling up a shop worker for his own twisted entertainment, eliciting a reaction then complaining to their manager and getting them fired.

He’s a lowlife fool with a superiority complex and his poor son took the brunt of his behaviour - what a terrific father leaving his own child in the firing line to deal with the embarrassment and repercussions from a stranger - he had no idea who it might be and the level of their reaction. He knew it wouldn’t be positive that’s for sure. All to make a point.

Ppl say he didn’t clock the blue badge, it makes more sense that he did and assumed the driver would be disabled and probably less likely to kick off while he had the satisfaction of teaching them a well-deserved lesson on parking etiquette!

OP shouldn’t have sworn towards (not directly at but it was towards) the son, but her reaction was understandable IMO. If she’d had a notepad to hand the solution may have been to write any insult on that and leave it under the windscreen wiper - but it’s all very well to think of these things after the heat of the moment.

If the police contact you again, OP - and I can’t believe they actually followed this complaint up when you weren’t threatening harm to the boy, or anyone else - you could perhaps say you feel the father was discriminating against you and your husband bc he is disabled, which caused distress to you both then and now and has also impacted your children and you’d like to counter-complain - whack that one back at him if you can be bothered.

But it wasn't done on purpose (or even at all) by the lad whom OP verbally abused. However angry and frustrated somebody's actions make us, there's no excuse for any of us to take it out on an innocent third party.

And I agree that feral youth should be clamped down on much more; but don't you think that we should maybe expect much better behaviour standards of mature adults than the worst that teens do?

I love this reply and agree 100%
I'm so sorry to hear about the difficulties that your DH faces💐

Nobody here is trying to defend what the father did. The boy is not his father; he was innocent - yet he received the angry tirade that OP wanted to send to his father.

Forget the parking; it's completely irrelevant. A child - who may even have been younger than he looked, may have had a disability or been ND himself - was probably terrified and upset by an angry woman who launched at him with a volley of abusive swear words of the strongest kind. OP knew that the verbal abuse was her limit, but the boy didn't necessarily know how far she might go.

A boy was frightened, abused and intimidated by an adult, whilst he was in an enclosed space - why would that not be a police matter? Do you not think that it should be within the remit of the police to protect children from adults?

If the boy had wanted to get out, he could’ve done so before his DF parked the car…. He chose not to!

His DF didn’t “trap” him in the car, anymore than he noted your number plate before leaving the car!

The supermarket could potentially have CCTV of the parking?

If the boy was very young and or had a disability then why did his father leave such a vulnerable person alone in the car - particularly when he was deliberately antagonising a total stranger? Perhaps the mother went nuclear when they returned home on hearing about the consequences of his morning actions which compelled him to reach for the emergency services to divert the blame.

It’s quite true that the boy didn’t know what the OP might do - again way to go dad for putting him in that position - but if the car was locked how could she have been a threat? I guess she could have started smashing the windows.

A boy was frightened, abused and intimidated by an adult, whilst he was in an enclosed space - why would that not be a police matter?

The adult in question wasn’t some random individual attacking the occupant of a regularly parked car. She and her husband were deliberately targeted by the father and she was provoked. I’m not saying her level of her reaction was excusable but it can be understandable in the circumstances. What if she had a disability or injury herself which prevented her climbing into the drivers seat from the passenter side? They could have had an urgent medical appointment to get to or her husband may have wanted to use the bathroom at home as there’s was no suitable toilets available where they were - any number of scenarios which dickhead dad don’t stop to consider. If he had I’m sure he wouldn’t have given two shits in any case.

Do you not think that it should be within the remit of the police to protect children from adults?

Yes, maybe they need to look closer to home in that regard as the dad was clearly not prioritising the well being of his son and placed him in a very vulnerable and potentially dangerous position.

If there were that many empty bays why park across two? You could have parked with an empty one each side to get your husband out. If, when you came back, someone had parked on the passenger side of your car surely you could have loaded your shopping then backed out and got your husband in (or vice versa?)

im also a wheelchair user and sometimes i have to get dropped off somewhere then my husband parks his car then had to collect me from the drop off/pick up point

I wouldn’t apologise. I’m actually shocked that the police showed up at your door for swearing at someone.

No, don't apologise. I cannot believe this is what the police are actually wasting their time with.

In the Tesco near me there’s now a sign up to say you can be fined for parking outside of a parked bay. Also for parking in a parent and child space not accompanied by young children. Having a blue badge doesn’t mean you’re exempt from the rules…….
Swearing at a child is disgusting.

His dad is horrible but swearing at and frightening a teenager does not make you citizen of the year either so yes you should apologise as you were in the wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right be a better role model.

The poster that said haven’t the police got anything better to do nails it for me. What is the world
coming to where a disabled, law abiding persons life is made extremely difficult because of the self centred actions of others and no one is allowed to say hurty words or express frustration. Yes the OP should not have shouted at the kid, it wasn’t his fault, she should have gone inside and got Tesco to embarrass the driver over the tannoy.

but the police are a disgrace, anything for a tick in the box for their stats, easy pickings whilst doing fuck all about real crime. I was brought up to respect them, I did for many years, but that changed over the last few years. How does a normal, law abiding woman come to hate, resent and mistrust every police officer she sees?

"Tell your dad he is a complete cunt." is where you lost any moral higher ground. What a shitty thing to say to a kid. I don't believe for one moment you would have called the driver a cunt to his face.

Selfish parking annoys people. Perhaps he hadn't spotted the disabled badge on your car. If you find yourself having to park across two bays, the thoughtful thing to do would be ask your husband to wait in the car so he can explain why you needed the extra space.

Also on team don’t apologise.

The futility of deliberately parking so close someone would have to open their doors onto your car beggars belief.

Selfish parking annoys people. Perhaps he hadn't spotted the disabled badge on your car. If you find yourself having to park across two bays, the thoughtful thing to do would be ask your husband to wait in the car so he can explain why you needed the extra space.

Oh come on. What is selfish about doing this at the back of a car park when it’s quiet?

Guarantee he won’t have done the same to an oversized work van or any other car that was “male coded”.

The man is a cunt. If he doesn't want his child to know that he is then he shouldn't behave like one in front of him.

Would you accept being sworn at for something your mother or father did?

You should have denied swearing at him. I wouldn’t apologise either

You would have been fined in my local Tesco car park for parking across 2 bays (blue card wouldn’t be considered an excuse).

The dad is a cunt but telling his son to tell his dad that he’s a cunt is also dickish behaviour. The son didn’t make him park like that and doesn’t deserve being treated as a suitable substitute for telling the actual person who has pissed you off. It might have made you feel better but it’s not fair on the lad. Do you go round telling people that their spouse or other family member is a cunt? If so, you should consider the fact that an angry cunt could take it out on them instead of you.

You owe the son an apology but the dad owes you one too. This shouldn’t have been made a police matter. The boy wasn’t trapped unless he has disabilities meaning that he couldn’t climb into the passenger seat.

Yes, I know that assault can be verbal as it’s the perceived threat of harm - but the boy was inside his own parked car where he was presumably quite safe. I know only he can answer this and he would have been naturally upset, but would he have felt physically under threat by a cross woman shouting about his dad? The abuse wasn’t directed at him as the subject of her anger. I didn’t know getting angry in response to a malicious act was police worthy.

I wouldn’t apologise either. Maybe the dad will think twice next time. He behaved like a twat and he’s been called out on it. Actually he’s behaved like a twat again because calling the police about such a matter is bonkers.

Unbelievable that the police came out. Honestly some kids ran up my driveway and banged on the window last night,think I might call the police about it and expect a response! And an apology obviously 😂

wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out the dad is a copper or friends with some of them.

OP have the police said what happens now? And next time when the police ask you anything the only response is “no comment”. On repeat for the whole conversation.

‘Tell your dad he is a complete cunt’

That was directed at young lad who didn’t even drive the car.

You lost the high ground when you did this.