Stranger tried to punch me while holding my little girl!

[SomebodysSome1]

Hey guys, ok this is really difficult for me to process. I am so traumatised I literally am struggling with the idea of leaving my home.

First of all, I am a professional, I have a hella lot of confidence, stand in front of classes of kids (who are the worst critics) and have worked in Pupil referral units which basically are for students who have been kicked out of mainstream- none of the behaviour management Stuff phases me.

What happened to me on Tuesday has shook me to the core.
I have two small babies, one that is 19 months old, one that is 3.5 years old, potty training. I was with my husband in a Pizza Express in a known area of Town that is usually quite nice. A place I visit, I am local to, and a place I frequent with my children and other mums from school at least once a month.

I took my little girl to the little girls room in between starters and mains. I got to the loo, took her to an open cubicle and let her do her very quick wee. Was super happy she was having a dry day and told her so. got her gear on and walked out of the cubicle and bent down to pull her sleeves up. I put on the tap and a lady who was in the bathroom having just washed her hands and dried them came back to the sink, stood in front and started playing with her hair.
By this time I have picked up my 3 year old with sleeves up, tap still running from when I have turned it on and lady still standing in front (didn't even think anything of it, waited patiently and praised my childs effort for communicating with me for her need to go to the loo- we were having a full dry day!)
Now what happened next just plays over and over in my mind...

This lady, caucasian, relatively well dressed, looking at me intermittently through the mirror while playing with her hair and sighing a lot makes eye contact with me and says "Stop smiling at me you condescending B*", now I am totally taken a back, a little in denial and still holding an increasing heavy little girl I happened to respond right back with "Excuse me, what was that? What did you say" To which she.... turned completely and repeated herself louder and emphasised the swear word to my face... She has moved out the way of the sink, is clearly mega angry with me and I move over to wash my daughters hands while responding " Could you please not swear in front of my child"....

NOW THIS, this is what I cannot get my head around, kid in right hand wrapped around right hand side of my body as I am using left hand to bend down and wash her, glancing over at the woman intermittently.... this was her unbelievable response to a reasonable request....

"F off, You Fking shut your mouth" and then leaping for me, now my child is on my right hand side and she is standing by the door to the right of me, ergo, my fear is my child as she lunges over. briefly by a hair misses my face which she had a fist ready for!!! I must have gone into fight or flight, I was yelling at her to get away from me as I made a b-line for the door, ran out the corridor to my husband and was yelling "Theres a woman in the toilet who tried to punch me while I have a child in hand, for smiling!!" I must have yelled it over and over and begged the working personnel to raise the alarm and call the police.

Thing is... police eventually came when my husband rang them and the staff were good to keep her away from us. I was scared and shaking!
I don't know if it was adrenaline! I just don't know. the staff asked the lady to leave- she didn't. The staff refused to serve her and the whole while I just wanted the police to come asap. I was literally in shock.

Now police came and split up and one came to take my story and one hers. Now when they both came back to me, it seemed that the other lady has no priors (my husband, a surgeon was sure she must be on the mental health spectrum, was expecting the police to manage the situation). Turned out according to officers she has no priors so theres not much they can do. Erm.... what? My husband asked she be escorted to leave and they were making a case that its a waste of police time to log anything. WHAT?

Then after more confusion and conversation between officers, the officer who spoke to her seemed more empathetic to her as "she is quite emotional and has said she's sorry" Erm..... what?

At the time I just couldn't think straight but at that time my officer asked me what I wanted the options being they could ask her to leave or just relay she's had a word with and won't be bothering me again.... My husband pushed for her to be asked to leave to which my response and understandably was, if she gets asked to leave and is disgruntled she will wait outside for us and with two babies she could follow us to the car or something. I was still scared, of a middle aged woman who attacked me with child in hand- for SMILING!!!!!!

Now sitting at home and gathering myself! I just can't get over the way everything happened, how it was dealt with.
in the end the lady was escorted home and I was to receive a crime report number via text message later in the evening, although I should expect that nothing would happen or be taken further...

Text message never arrived. I am not sure what exactly is the response to the fact she can do that in a public place with someone she doesn't know and is carrying a child. It doesn't bring me much comfort and I want advice on how to a) chase this up and b) to pursue a result from this. I literally keep reliving it and it is keeping me up, I just am struggling with the idea of grocery shopping now.

I have tried to find advice. Where is the legal standpoint here? I am a woman of light brown/olive colour and I cannot help but think that had it been the other way around I would have left in handcuffs. I am so scared to take my kids out now and I just cannot look at middle aged 'nice' ladies the same. I never thought a middle aged woman could be such a threat. I am really struggling with it all to be honest.

Please help! any advice please.
SG
Londoner in Birmingham

I have a neighbour who has sworn at me and my children for 2 years, a well dressed pensioner, even her husband has been and apologised to me... police have warned her for harassment etc but nothing changes.
Like a PP, I used to think the police would always sort the bad guys out, especially when you are handing them the perpetrator on a plate. Sadly, not the case anymore.

Strangely, if this happened to a celebrity, it would be all over the newspapers and it would go to court. I have read about an woman swearing at her Famous ex with his new partner, just once, going to court and being charged.
I hope you feel better about things soon.

OP I really feel for you but the fact that you keep reiterating your education and jobs (and your husbands) is really irritating - and is making me feel this post is fake and you're going to start talking about your charity work and your mansion next.

I have been abandoned by my ex, have ended up on benefits with my two children. I have a 3.5 year old as well, who I take to the toilet regularly when out too. I did this yesterday twice at the pool. If this happened to me and the police did nothing would that be fair enough because I'm an under qualified single mum at the moment? You seem to think your "status" means this woman should be dealt with more harshly and arrested. The sad fact is, extremely volatile people exist, and the police can't arrest someone for every scuffle and threat, they would be making hundreds of arrests all day and night.

I would feel exactly like you if this happened to me too, especially as I'm a single mum and go everywhere on my own with my children too. You need to get some counselling for it. Nothing else is going to help.

I don’t understand what all the unnecessary details about your degrees and yours and your husband’s jobs have got to do with anything. This is a very odd post from a first time poster confused.

Neither do I.

As the Op has mentioned her skin colour and the fact that the woman was white, I suspect she’s trying to find a racist motive in her behaviour. But unless the woman used specific language to support that idea then it really is a waste of time speculating on it. As someone else uothread size, the police don’t deal in ‘what ifs.’

Sorry, what I meant to say was that perhaps the OP wants to point out how highly educated she and her husband are as a way of showing that they don’t fit into any stereotypes of low paid, benefit scrounging immigrants?

She made contact with you so it's a common assault.
Go back to the police. She admitted it to them so it should be a caution that'll go down in her record.
Lack of previous doesn't matter everyone has to have a first time.
Insist it's recorded by the police and just keep taking it higher if they won't listen. Make a formal complaint etc.
I'd recommend being calm and consistent though. If you are rude or come across a bit mad they'll be less helpful.

For an assault charge they don’t actually have to make contact, it’s about being in fear for your own safety. So I think it could be pursued. Whether there’s enough evidence is another matter

I think quite a few people here have little idea of how it works in the police.

I'm sorry this happened to you, who knows why she behaved like this. Could be a dozen different reasons, none excusing it.

The police are duty bound to take your allegation seriously if you make one.
What they may have done is persuade you not to. This isn't correct procedure.

The reason why they may have done this is sadly it's going nowhere and they knew it. Again that doesn't make their actions right.

She could have been arrested based on your allegation, been interviewed and almost without a doubt been released nfa (no further action). Without an independent witness, cctv, or her admitting everything in interview that's the only possible outcome.
The whole no priors thing is absolutely irrelevant, it's what has happened there and then that matters.

Might be worth a complaint if you feel you were talked out of making an allegation.

I've been a cop for 15 years so I've a fair understanding of how this works.

I understand why its shaken you up OP, absolutely I do .

However, I am sorry BUT, what is your husband being a Surgeon to do with anything ?

I'm sorry you've been through this OP. I'm also sorry you've had some less then helpful responses and people pulling you up on the fact you've dared to mention your social class and race.

I can understand why you are so frustrated. I feel frustrated just reading this. This is the sort of thing that you read about in the papers as a 'why didn't anyone do something then' story when someone has gone crazy and done something awful. I'm disappointed you were treated that way by the police.

I'm sorry this happened to you OP, it sounds very scary.

However I do implore you, as others have, to keep the unnecessary detail out of it if you take it further with the police. The fact you were praising your child for having a dry day for example, is irrelevant. I understand you were trying to explain that you aren't unused to aggressive behaviour, with your previous experience in PRUs, but that's also entirely irrelevant. And the fact your husband is a surgeon makes him no more qualified to diagnose possible mental health issues in a random stranger than anybody else.

OP I’m so sorry to hear of your experience.

I’m not sure how much else can be done. I was a witness to my relative being punched by a complete stranger. At the time she was stood in a queue at the supermarket with a wheelchair and this woman walked towards her stopped in front of her, said “I don’t like you” and punched her in the face hard. It was absolutely shocking. It was caught on CCTV, clearly an unprovoked attack.

The police attended, investigate etc. In the end CPS didn’t prosecute and prior to this my relative was strongly encouraged/guilt tripped to drop all charges.

Apparent the woman had no previous and was simply stressed as she had recently lost her job and as a single mother couldn’t afford to feed her kids and was worrying about her kid’s upcoming birthday. She was apparently apologetic and acknowledged that my relative had done nothing to provoke her and it was simply a case of wrong place wrong time. The police kept saying she was a single mother and a conviction would ruin her career chances (she worked with children previously) when they were persuading my relative to drop charges. They kept going on about the stress the violent woman had gone through and the anxiety and negative impacts on her mental health. Didn’t seem to care a jot about my relative who had disabilities herself and was punched while pushing a wheelchair.

It seems like the police are often reluctant to follow up on this kind of thing and it’s definitely not fair to you. I’m so sorry for you and you child and hope you both recover soon. Did the police not offer victim support to you or anything like that?

This sounds absolutely awful OP, I am not surprised you are very shaken.

I do occasional work with people who are considered dangerous and we learn de-escalation techniques to try to avoid this sort of situation. It would be things like not getting into a conversation with someone that was using aggressive language and just calmly leaving the space that they are in (unless of course the refusal to engage was aggravating them further). Repeated eye contact can also be problematic, especially if that has already come up as an issue - which it did in this encounter.

None of these things you should have to do - the problem is 100% with the other person, but to stay safe it's about de-escalating, placating as necessary, and trying to calmly move away from the other person.

OP contact the local station and ask to speak to the senior officer on duty. If they "aren't available" ask for details of how you make an official complaint. The force will have a department for investigating complaints, they have different names in different forces but they will have one and no officer wants to be investigated and no senior officer wants complaints investigations on his patch. You might suddenly find someone is available if not contact police HQ and raise a complaint.

You have every right to feel safe when you go out, the officers were being lazy and contrary to what people often seem to believe it is more likely that they will downplay something (to avoid the paperwork) than try to "fit you up" for something.

You aren't over reacting, next time she might seriously hurt someone.

I hope you are feeling OK.

OP, what was the other woman's side of the story? Did she admit to doing anything? Did she give any reasons? Did she blame you? Did the police tell you any of this?

Also: could you have said to the police that you wanted to press charges?

Im so sorry to hear this happened to you. Not sure what i can say on legal things but really hope you feel more like yourself soon and police do something about it. How is your little girl? Hope shes ok as must of been scary for her too. Go you for protecting her and yourself so well .

But surely if she has said she is sorry in front of the police then she has admitted it and no witnesses are necessary?

The stuff about all her degrees is her processing the thought 'how can I be so clever in one way, yet so unable to read this situation, prevent this from happening and protect my children'.

She's preoccupied with trying to process the incident, with her brain in overdrive, making much of every possible point and issue.

She could've given her the dirtiest look, that still doesn't entitle the stranger to try and punch her

I do sort of love the bit about the police praising and kow-towing to the alpha-male husband though. 'An apology indicates guilt you say, sir? Well, now you mention it, we can see the rightness of your finely analysed perspective and the limitations of our provincial yokelish ways, sir'.

I was actually attacked by a white woman and she wasn’t arrested. It’s nothing to do with race. The police won’t do much in this situation unfortunately.

Am i being blind. Other than saying this woman was white can't see where the OP mentions her race, just all her jobs and degrees

oh ignore me! it is just a the end! I guess i was tired of the saga by then

There’s an extraordinary amount of unnecessary detail in your post.

As well as a lot of dramatic language.

If you do follow it up make sure you stick to the facts.