would you report this person and how could I go about doing it!?

[sammyjayneex]

So we live in a culdesac and my children play out on the street. I check on them every 5-10 mins.
My 9 year old told me when I brought her in for tea that this van ( looks like it's some form of transport for dropping Off the elderly or disabled children to their homes) and he was dropping off this lady ( I think she's a member of staff he must work with as she wears a badge but I can't quite catch where she works) in one of the houses opposite to us. My daughter said she was stood with her friend and he started talking to them and they turned around and said something along the lines of 'your in trouble you, or are you in trouble or stay out of trouble you' something along those lines, my daughter didn't quite catch it because he said of and drove off. Now to me this is unacceptable, approaching young girls, making unpleasant remarks and driving off. She said she just ignored him. I've told her she should never talk to strangers and she should come straight to me as soon as it happens instead of ages after. I have seen this van plenty of times. One time a man made a Comment towards me whilst I was walking down the street, I ignored him and put him down to being a rude sad man, but now he's made comments towards my daughter I'm fuming and want to report him but there isn't any company name on the van. It's just a van with Windows. I was thinking of waiting tomorrow afternoon for the van to come up and taking is reg number or approaching myself and asking him who the hell he thinks he is!

[SuburbanRhonda]

You'd better be careful how you go about "keeping an eye on this", OP.

You could find yourself being questioned for stalking

[MoonfaceAndSilky]

I won't report him right now but I'll be keeping an eye on this

Hallelujah, common sense prevails.

My God, you could have ruined his life if you had made a complaint to his employers about his inappropriate talking to children. Can you imagine his work colleagues getting the wrong idea? The stigma following him around all his life - "Ew, he's the weirdo who hangs around kids...." and all because he made a throwaway remark, to your dd, about keeping out of trouble

[FattyNinjaOwl]

blink that has been said.
As for not believing the op, we do. We just happen to think her reaction was ott

[blinkowl]

"blink I understand probability"

I'm afraid so far you have demonstrated exactly the opposite. Just saying - or even believing - you understand something is not the same as actually understanding it.

"if there's a man and a woman in the street, you cannot guarantee the woman is safer than the man."

Nobody said that. Not one person. The point was that men are more likely to be sleezy / a threat / etc.

Nobody said a man was guaranteed to be.

[AugustaFinkNottle]

Talking, you don't seem to follow that you can't change the point I was answering, no matter how much you obfuscate it.

[GinaBambino]

suburban yes please or will that get me done by the MNers who find that phrase offensive. I give up. I'm too tired and bot and pregnant to argue anymore. Even cleaning my kitchen (shit I told dp I'd do it and he could relax tonight - damn his male entitlement to having a wifey clean up after him) is better than going round the bloody houses on this thread.

[GinaBambino]

Urgh so because some people have 'defended' this man, we are men or have not had this happen to us. Odd as it does happen to me, often, maybe more so since being pregnant but I guess I'm lucky that I don't get offended by everything a bloke says to me (out of a window or not) and can just get on with my day by ignoring them or flashing them a sarcastic smile or mentally calling them a dick. I've even had it whilst out with nieces and nephews. Again I ignore them and as nieces and nephews didn't hear/too young to care/in their own little world, they don't care about it. I don't think men feel entitled by doing this. I genuinely don't. That is my opinion. I am entitled to that if nothing else.

[SuburbanRhonda]

gina

Care for a a stick to beat that dead dog with?

[exasperated]

[amarmai]

Blink Owl you are doing a great job explaining what we shd be discussing. There is NO male entitlement to voice whatever they feel like voicing to random women and children.I am sorry to read that you have experienced the same as me and so many other women . Everything is on a spectrum. The op's perception that she and her dd do not like this man calling out his van window AT them shd be accepted without question. If she had posted with a different heading perhaps some of the persistent attackers wd not have been soo attracted to knocking her and anyone agreeing with her down. Perhaps.

[GinaBambino]

Gahh this thread is verging on the ridiculous now.
This man has done nothing illegal! Regardless of whether it is annoying, chavvy, immature, proof the patriarchy believe all women must smile on demand because they say so, he shouted a comment out of a window which 2 9yo's did not hear properly or think urgent or upsetting enough to tell a trusted adult immediately.
You should teach children that most adults can be trusted in an emergency not that all men are alive just to harass you and belittle you and all women are angels in disguise as this is not true!

This is an extreme example - say your child was lost in a town centre or had wandered down a different aisle in a store and couldn't see you, they started to get upset. The only person around was a big burly bloke who was undercover store security, plain clothed police officer or an off duty police officer. As this man is not in uniform and has no noticeable ID pinned on him, would your child trust him? Would you? Would you be the woman that scream at men (or women I'm not sexist) for helping your child/admonishing them gently if they stray too far near the road or are waiting at the end of the street for you to catch up, or would you be the woman (and there's clearly a lot judging by the examples above) who thank the stranger for helping their child/looking after them for that split second you didn't have your eyes on them? Would it be easier if all dickheads had a badge pinned to them so we could avoid them? Yes, but then that's a whole different thread and argument.

The OP has said, repeatedly, that she will not report him (good as I don't know what or whom she'd report him for/to) but the point is, people will do annoying things all the time. This is not illegal. People will talk to you in passing on the street. This is not illegal. People will also engage in conversation with children when unattended or unaccompanied. Not illegal. People will also shout out of car or van windows. I did it yesterday. To strangers. Not illegal.

[FattyNinjaOwl]

blink I understand probability. I understand statistics what you aren't understanding is that if there's a man and a woman in the street, you cannot guarantee the woman is safer than the man.

[TalkingintheDark]

Augusta it's not that I can't follow basic logic, it's that your "argument" is completely redundant. The point at question is not whether faced with a particular man or a woman you can know automatically which of them poses the most danger to a child. It's just whether it's wise to be more wary of men in general than of women. Experience shows that on balance, it is, exceptions notwithstanding.

And any attempt to pretend otherwise is just obfuscation.

[blinkowl]

Gah typos!

[blinkowl]

Ninja, here us am example to help you understand probability.

There are two drawers. Both of them have 10 socks in them.

The bottom drawer has 1 orange sock and 9 black socks.

The top drawer has 7 orange socks and 3 black socks.

Are your chances of pulling an orange sock out of each drawer the same or different?

There are two drawers. By your reasoning it would be the same chance of bring a orange or a black sock.

But this is totally false. What matters is how likely the sock is to be orange I that drawer, not how many other drawers there are.

For the bottom drawer the answer is there is a 1 in 10 chance of the sock you pull out being orange.

For the top drawer your chance of pulling a orange sock is 7 in 10.

If you want to avoid orange socks the smart move is to pick the bottom drawer.

Saying "but there are 2 drawers so tyere's an equal chance" simply means you need to learn how probability works, your understanding is totally wrong.

I think I would enjoy playing poker with you.

[blinkowl]

"It's like the cat in the box. There's an equal chance it's alive or dead. You don't know until you open the box. So at that moment it is both.

A man and woman are walking down the street. You don't know which (if any) of them is a threat to your child so at that moment in time, they are both a threat."

No, it's nothing like the cat in the box. This is a thought 3xoer8kent that has been set up deliberately with a 50-50 chance of the car being alive or dead.

It does not follow thst where there are two things the odds are always 50-50! This is where your logic is screwy and you have failed to understand the basics of probability.

I am more wary if men on the streets because experience has told me that hundreds - if not thousands - of them have given me unwanted attention over the years ranging from intrusive low level harassment to intimidating me, sexual assault and rape.

Women have never done this, not once.

Therefore my experience showe me men are more likely to be sleezy and innapropriate or even threatening to me than women.

It has nothing to do with how many men or women are in front of you! Or to do with cats in boxes.

[Ricardian]

"proof" that you can't extrapolate from the statistics that men are generally more of a danger to children than women are.

You might like to look at who are the perpetrators in the last half dozen SCRs. You can shape all these sorts of figures: if you are killed by a stranger, is that stranger more likely to be male? Yes, but the numbers are very low, and there are women on the scene in some cases (Hyndley, Carr, West) whose moral agency you might like to debate. If you are killed by your parent or guardian, is that parent or guardian more likely to be male? No, it's almost exclusively a woman or a couple, and arguing that the women lack moral agency is a stretch. BUt again, the numbers are very small.

Murder of children is rare, mercifully, murder of children by strangers all the more so. Arguing the characteristics of who does it is extrapolating from am incredibly thin base, and you can slant the answer by choosing the crimes.

[FattyNinjaOwl]

augusta thank you for explaining much better than me

[AugustaFinkNottle]

And now we have Myra Hindley (known btw for being completely under the influence of Ian Brady rather than the initiator in her own right) being posited as "proof" that you can't extrapolate from the statistics that men are generally more of a danger to children than women are.

Straw man argument. The point I was making was not that men are or are not more dangerous to children, but that you cannot automatically assume, when faced with a man and a woman, that the woman is safe and the man isn't. The fact that Myra Hindley was under Brady's influence didn't make her any less dangerous; indeed, they traded on the fact that children were more likely to trust them precisely because she was there.

When you can't follow basic logic, it's probably not a good idea trying to accuse other people of being ignorant.

[PortiaCastis]

There are lies. damn lies and then there are statistics

[FattyNinjaOwl]

That's exactly my point. You can't assume you know something. And Myra Hindley may have been told by Brady to do those things, she still chose to do them. You can't place all of the blame on him (most yes, not all)

[Ricardian]

"proof" that you can't extrapolate from the statistics that men are generally more of a danger to children than women are.

[PortiaCastis]

Yes you have to open the box to find out. Seeing is believing.

[heyhulahoop]

Thing is, it could be a cat in the box or it could be myra hindley. That's the thing about boxes.

[PortiaCastis]

I saw an elderly woman struggling on the pavement with a cats box, she seemed to be limping so i stopped the car and shouted out of the window "do you and the cat need want a lift to the vets?" She replied " oh thank you I wouldn't mind but bubbles (her cat) doesnt care". Got her and bubbles into the car and asked her what was wrong with the cat.
She said " nothing's wrong with him he's bloody dead and I want the vet to get rid of him because i can't be digging graves at my age"
So i thought she had a poorly puss but I was wrong

[TalkingintheDark]

Some great examples of how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing here! Still PMSL about the cat in a box. And now we have Myra Hindley (known btw for being completely under the influence of Ian Brady rather than the initiator in her own right) being posited as "proof" that you can't extrapolate from the statistics that men are generally more of a danger to children than women are.

Is there really any point in engaging with such determined ignorance? On the balance of probabilities... No.