A man spat at my toddler today and I don’t know what to do

[Pen89ox]

the title might be a bit ott, but it’s what happened, he was doing it to everyone who came out the train station but he was so close to the door you didn’t realise until it was too late. he was doing a weird thing with his mouth making a massive noise and it sprayed his spit everywhere. he was drunk and sat on the floor sadly right at the same level as my 2yo’s face in his pram.

it a might sound dramatic but I’ve wiped his face with a baby wipe and I looked back and the man was just sort of smiling at us and then carried on doing it to other people.

can any awful things be passed via spit? i’m so annoyed that i didn’t avoid him but he was literally was just round a corner so there was no way to know that was happening.

Spitting at people became a crime all on it's own during covid, didn't it?

You should have spoken to transport police when you were in the station but it is probably too late now.

It’s a tiny tiny station I doubt there was any staff there at all - I didn’t see any - let alone transport police, going back into the station would have also meant walking past him again which I didn’t want to do as he was purposely waiting for people to go past him to start spitting.

Disgusting pig . Report him to the police . Surely he's on camera somewhere ? He could have been spreading covid etc .

I don't think you can catch anything that way but you could phone 111 and ask.

If he was waiting for people to spit at please do report it to the police, spitting at people is assault.

You can contact BTP and report it - there will be cameras at stations even if it's unmanned.

It's assault.

I'm sure LO will be fine, but it should definitely be reported

That's absolutely disgusting! Save the number for BTP. You can text them and they'll intercept the train.

Hoping your little is perfectly fine!! But of course it can transmit all sorts of viruses! That's why we all used masks. If droplets from speaking, sneezing, coughing can transmit, proper spit is a big glob of the stuff 🤢

Yes, diseases can be spread this way, TB, Covid, flu, cold.
Spitting is disgusting.

What an absolutely disgusting minger! He needs to be reported to the police and severely penalised for that behaviour. I hope he loses his job. Absolutely disgusting.

Plus glandular fever and Epstein Barr virus

You don't think there's probably a fairly serious MH issue there?

I almost certain he needs some help, which he won't get, but it should be reported on the off chance.

Report this for everyone's sake!

You don't think there's probably a fairly serious MH issue there?

He was drunk and probably on drugs too. He needs locking up and sobering up.

@50mg

do you know what in that situation if someone had spat at me or my child I really wouldn’t care.

Mental health issues do not give a person carte blanche to assault others which spitting is.

millions of us have mental health issues and we don’t go around assaulting others

And if I turned round and caught him smiling I’d be incensed

yep! Not all bad behaviour is due to mh issues sometimes bad behaviour is simply a bad person

I would have rang 999. Disgusting and dangerous. He'll to it to the wrong person and get himself beaten to a pulp

Phone police on 999. You don’t have to go back to the station.

@50mg so people with mental health problems get a free pass to be fucking pigs and to a baby too. Nahhh I would have kicked him if he spat on my child...rat!!phone the police and report it he probably sits there often.

I was watching an airport programme the other day (I think it was about Heathrow) and an unruly passenger spat at a police officer and they sent them off for tests and added assault of an officer to his charges so yeah, call the police to report and 111 to find out how you go about tests.
Vile pig, you should have volleyed him.

Where do you live?

Well I rang a private gp line I get as a benefit through work and the gp said nothing can be done, as did my friend who this regularly happens to when working in the police.

I think toddler was sort of looking away from the guy luckily so I’m just hoping if anything did get on him it didn’t go near his mouth.

I sprayed baby safe anti bac spray (the stuff that’s actually safe to swallow) on his face straight after, wiped him down with a wipe and then gave him a full wash in the sink with soap, and he’s had a bath.

Will report on BTP site after toddler is in bed as looks like it’s quite long.

Hi this exact thing happened to my daughter a few months ago. I was walking through our local park with her and a man walking past very deliberately bent down and spat in her face. I freaked out, screamed at him, called him a "disgusting c*" and he kept walking like nothing happened.

Anyway, I took her to the GP who advised me to take her to A&E and they told me the chances of her getting anything from it were virtually non-existent so hopefully that provides some reassurance.

As far as the legal side goes I am in Ireland so not sure how the law differs from the UK. But the police caught him and told me they had no power of arrest as only a category 1 assault so I just have to wait for it to come up in court. That was about 9 months ago and no word on it yet!

Woah that’s outrageous!

The guys really lucky. If that had been my dp pushing the pram pretty sure I would be getting a phone call from the local station.

So sorry this happened to you