Oh dear lord, someone has been deliberately running over people in Cardiff

[Pagwatch]

What on earth can be happening

here

they have named the man and already people on my facebook are asking if anyone knows him. I don't know what they will do - run off to Barry with their pitchforks perhaps and do something to his family?

I completely understand this is a tragedy for all involved and those poor poor children have lost their mother. It's awful. However this is starting to feel like the April Jones thing where people are getting so involved with something that really isn't their personal tragedy.

I live right by the courts and it was bizarre seeing the people outside. Too close to home.

yes, I heard that because of the rumours the poor bloke everyone thought it was had to have police protection all weekend. Wonder why on earth people even thought the person would be out and about considering he was under arrest.

They have named the person now though haven't they?

Sometimes, when something nasty happens, you hear a lot about how awful it is that it happened in such a 'warm, close' community. The thing is with 'warm, close' communities is that they tend to need scapegoats. And the pressure on the community scapegoat sometimes leads to that person snapping.

The other downside of 'close' communities is the tendency towards frothing vigilantism. Hence the naming of the wrong bloke and his need for police protection.

I don't think he is from within the community. Maybe I am not as much a part of my community as the people of Ely are but I was talking to DH last night and both of us agreed if something similar had happened in our part of Cardiff we definitely wouldn't be visitiing the crime scene or attending local services. Even if we knew the people involved.

BBC article on today's court appearance, at which Matthew Tvrdon of no fixed abode was remanded in custody.

for SGB for speculating the accused is a 'scapegoat' and having a dig at 'warm close communities' blaming them. SGB you have written some offensive stuff on here about this and April Jones (thankfully deleted).

If only we had a hide user button.....I'm going to not take your speculating bait (leaves thread).

Well said afro

I'm not the one naming names and waving pitchforks. That's worrying behaviour. There was a fair bit of pitchforkery going on during the search for Tia Sharpe, to the point where the police had to tell the local people quite firmly to stop searching as there were a couple of incidents of civilians trying to force entry to sheds and garages etc. And then it turned out that she was in the family home all the time.

Questioning people's tendency to get over-involved in news stories might be 'offensive;' to some people but being offended is part of life and no big deal.

This SGB is where I take issue with you.

Once again you are drawing parallels to Tia Sharpe, a case that has seen due process and we know the outcome of, and are comparing it and making wild assumptions on how there are parallels to 2 cases in the news right now, this one where innocent children and adults were mown down with plenty of eye witnesses and where a suspect appeared in court today and will be charged tomorrow. Then the case in Mid Wales where you made a disgusting reference lumping Tia Sharpe family (case where it has been concluded) and the family of missing April in the same sentence as if they were the same and speculating wildly about the missing girls family.

In your earlier post you refer to 'scape goats' and from that post I really question whether you actually know what one is. I have no idea why you wrote that other to antagonise, after all, how can you call people scape goats who are in custody, and are being/have been charged. And then to stick the boot in, you blame the close knit society for these people snapping. You don't know what happened In these cases and your poor psychoanalysis of something you are speculating wildly on is offensive to many on this thread where it is very close to home.

Of course vigilantism is wrong but saying its just a by product of a close knit society is extremely ignorant....and yes....offensive. You are a bit too quick to jump to the defence of people the police are investigating, innocent till proven guilty yes but in my eyes your posts jumping to these peoples defence is no different to saying someone is guilty when you haven't a clue either way.

It's easy not to take offence when these crimes do not impact your life, perhaps some compassion wouldn't go amiss.

It's also worth noting most people on this thread live and are from Cardiff so it's on our doorstep. I was walking my ds1 aged 4 home from school pushing my 5.5 month old ds2 in his pram at the time these events occurred. I am thankful I'm in a different part of Cardiff but it would have taken him less than 20 mins to get from Ely to Whitchurch at that time of day, the attacks lasted 30. We are all thankful it wasn't us or our loved ones as it so easily could have been.

Point is we're not jumping on some dreadful bandwagon, this event is truly horrifying for us.

SGB, you seem to do a bit of bandwagon-jumping yourself in this regard, looking eagerly for threads about news events so you can repeatedly make this point. You have the right to post what you like within the Talk rules, of course, but as you will see from scanning responses to your earlier comments up the thread, it impresses no one. Just makes you look like you are a) crass and b) deliberately antagonistic. There is another word for people who do b) on the net. I can't quite remember what it is, unfortunately.

Afro: Just as a point of fact the Tia Sharpe case has not come to trial so no, the general public do not know what has happened. In this Cardiff case, someone has been arrested and charged but not convicted.

Querying the way a news story has been reported, suggesting that it may not be accurate and advising people to calm down a bit while discussing it on a public forum may not please everyone, but sometimes it's not a bad idea.

SGB, the way you referred to Tia Sharpe up thread, comments deleted, something about grubby family domestics? Linking that with another recent case, well I mistakingly thought it had been concluded! You semed to have made your mind up there alright whilst case not concluded. Yes, that did confuse me!

Seems hypocritical how you can comment in such a fashion on that case but still come on this thread where locals are in shock and start preaching at them about innocent till proven guilty

Bizarre behaviour, I agree with snazzyspookyandscary.

but, sgb, " Querying the way a news story has been reported, suggesting that it may not be accurate and advising people to calm down a bit " is not what you are doing. You are deriding other people's feelings of horror, reducing three unrelated and unconcluded criminal events to the same common denominator which exists only in your interpretation, and you are doing so without softening your words with any acknowledgement of the impact (offence) it is having on others on this thread.

And yes, encountering things which one finds offensive is part of life, but someone with an ounce of courtesy, fellow-feeling or respect for others would not keep saying the same things to an audience who have already indicated they are taking offence. However right you believe you are, for some people this event hits close to home and you are dripping lemon juice into that wound, even if you think it is just a paper cut.

I am from Cardiff and I haven't had any worry about how it cold have been me and my son. It wasn't me and my son. I personally don't get the angst people feel. I understand the sympathy people feel for the people involved but it's happened and all this hand-wringing doesn't help the families. I don't feel horrified either, not now. It happend, it was awful, it will be dealt with by the courts. Some of the comments I read online from people wanting to rip this man apart are awful.

What I am trying to say is, just being from or living in Cardiff doesn't necessarily make you more connected to something like this.

No you dont have to feel connected.

But a lot of people do feel things more when theres a close proximity. I think that is quite normal.

A desire to lynch someone isnt normal and simply doesnt reflect well on the person saying it.

SGB, you chose the wrong point in the wrong story to start pouring scorn. The Cardiff road deaths were extraordinary and frightening for anyone on the streets that day. And multiple un-related victims in multiple locations, on the streets, make it very unlikely indeed to have any parallels with cases where the accused is a relative of one victim.

I'm not in Cardiff and I was surprised how low priority this was on BBC news. R4 had it as their third news item on Saturday morning after some utterly non story about Ed Miliband saying he was glad Andrew Mitchell had resigned. That really was a news story with no point to it.

The Cardiff thing was awful and definitely deserved a higher priority in the news. Yes it appears to have been just a random person not a calculated terrorist attack and therefore potentially the wider implications are limited but so many different families have been affected that it really should have given everyone pause.

I do agree though that these facebook lynch mobs and people turning up to shout at complete strangers outside a courtroom is odd - and horrible. To be honest, I think one can typically judge the people who do those things as simply not very smart. I can stop to think with sorrow about the families affected and about how it could have been someone I know without having to go and participate in the equivalent of a medieval witch hunting mob.

Reading the tribute page on Facebook and it's all full of 'hang the c*' and 'send him back to Poland the foreign bastard' stuff. Really frightening stuff.

Is this typical of the community?