Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Elderly parents

Saw a man verbally abusing his mother in public

3 replies

bonbonours · 28/11/2022 11:28

This is a bit similar to the thread on witnessing child abuse...

I saw a guy today going into and then inside a local shop, constantly yelling at his mother who was in a mobility scooter. She wasn't particularly elderly but obviously had physical disability, and potentially, from the way he spoke to her, mental health problems eg alzheimers or similar. But I was appalled at how he spoke to her. He was constantly yelling, "Come on mum", "get a move on" then actually whistled at her to get her to come over. He was also speaking to her in a really patronising way, "right come over here, don't mow the people down, just stay there and wait a minute," as if she were a naughty child (and I wouldn't even speak that way to a child).

I genuinely felt so sorry for this lady, and half thought about going over to speak to her to ask if she was okay or felt in danger from her son. I thought if that is how he speaks to her / treats her in public, what happens behind closed doors? But I was a bit scared to go and speak to her as he was quite intimidating. I've never seen them before, and obviously don't know anything about them in terms of who they are or where they live.

Don't think there's anything I can do but I felt very uncomfortable with the situation. Other people in the shop were also looking uneasy, averting their gaze etc.

OP posts:
Doowop1919 · 28/11/2022 20:28

How horrible. I don't have any advice but bumping for you, op.

Bedazzled22 · 30/11/2022 23:11

How sad - perhaps you may see them again?

SafeguardingSocialWorker · 01/12/2022 18:40

Unless you have her name then there isn't anything you can really do unfortunately. If the abuse was at a level that the police may be interested then you could report it to them and they MIGHT make some enquiries (often these days a Facebook post saying did anyone witness X happening at X time).

If he is behaving like that in a public place though then it's likely someone who knows them may have already raised concerns with the local authority if it's a regular occurrence and the woman isn't able to protect herself from his abuse.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page