I'm in complete and utter shock about this accusation

[chichi2026]

I don't want to bore everyone with the background (or out myself). Basically, I have been on the receiving end of a long campaign of harassment by my immediate neighbour. I was finally able to give a statement to police at the end of last year - then a few weeks later, her behaviour escalated to racism in January this year and after more waiting, she was charged with racially aggravated harassment. I have no choice but to continue living opposite her and it's been a few months of hell, but at least the Court date is finally approaching later this month. We live in social housing and the landlord has recently (after much lobbying on my part) decided to start legal proceedings against her. It's good news, but too little too late as the impact on me has been horrendous - and I'll probably lose my job as a result of it.

This tenant is younger than me and not the brightest - but she is extremely manipulative and has involved a couple of her friends (also neighbours) to increase the pressure of the harassment on me. It's taken me such a long time to get anyone to believe me about the ongoing situation and I personally feel that I have been disbelieved due to unconscious bias by the housing association. I try to see the best in people and I don't want to think this but I have so many examples of when I have been treated differently in very comparable situations.

My neighbour's friend was out in the garden at just after 3am today and was making a lot of noise. I opened my bedroom window and said (not shouted as I didn't want to wake everyone up) that she was being loud and could she please stop. This neighbour is very aware that her friend is due in Court this month for Racially Aggravated Harassment.

She responded by shouting "what?" and then got her phone out and started filiming (I wasn't, I was just speaking out the window). She started walking towards the area under my window. She then suddenly shouted, "what did you say, did you just call me a white bitch?"

I was totally confused and said no, what was she on about, then she started raising her voice, repeating the accusation loudly whilst still filming. She started fake crying and then looked at me and smirked. I then called 999 to report what had happened.

I can't believe it would be that easy to accuse someone of that and there is unlikely to be any meaningful police response to that. How do I trust the police as a woman of colour, knowing that we are statistically likely to be mistreated, yet the far right have now made out that the police don't care about white people because mistakes were made around one recent situation?

There is a two tier issue and it definitely isn't in the favour of ethnic minority people. If the dickheads protesting didn't attack the police they would have a much easier life.

Nobody wants to hear the reality. Brown or black people who report a crime are not going to get a blue light response. I rang 999 an hour and a half ago and have had nothing from them, even though I said that this person is likely to leave the area. That means that they can leave and I get no justice.

Living in a street with people who's default setting is "I was dragged up, not very bright, but skilled in hate" can be soul-destroying

That being said, the police are highly unlikely to attend at 3am, unless threats were being made.

Have you logged with 101?

Presumably you have a document of events? add this one to the evidence
CCTV? If not, would you consider something like a Tapo C200 and display prominently in a window.

Some of these replies are ridiculous, making you at fault for telling (not shouting) the nutter to stop shouting at 3am.

"But I've never been anything other than smiling and polite and certainly never asked or told them to be quiet... because I know that would be a red rag to a bull.
I like living in harmony with my neighbours "

Erm, There is no harmony. One neighbour is due in court, she's manipulated her equally loser friends in a targeted campaign and the 3am shouter is a douche and needs putting in her place.

OP Have you considered martial arts?

Also, when you leave the house, walk out the door with a big, cheesy grin.
Street haters glaring at you? Flash a big toothy grin, instantly breaks their spell

Op: Don't let the barstewards grind you down.

Ignore the haters, they've got nothing else to contribute to the world

There are usually three sides to most stories.

No way on earth were you going to get a blue light response over this anyway. And it's not linked to the colour of your skin. You were safe in your house, and a person swore at you from outside. It's hardly the crime of the century, although I appreciate this is just another upsetting incident in a long list of grievances.

Personally, I agree with others who said you should have just ignored the noise. Put earplugs in, or turned on your phone to play some boring YouTube documentary to drown it out.

Moving forward, just ignore ignore ignore, until the court date comes around.

Some of these replies are ridiculous, making you at fault for telling (not shouting) the nutter to stop shouting at 3am.

Virtually all of these replies have advised the OP in the same way. That it’s not racist, as she believes, for the police not to come out, blue lights blazing at three in the morning for a spat between neighbours, from which OP is contributing from the safety of her own home.

They have also advised that the OP has played very nicely into a scenario devised by the neighbour in order to make OP look like the unreasonable one, given that there is a court case pending. The neighbour hit the jackpot when OP called 999 expecting an emergency response. It’s incidents like these that will eventually render the word ‘racist’ meaningless.

And by the way - pot, kettle, black. Martial arts ? Really ?

YANBU to be throughly stressed and fed up with these awful people.

YABVU to dial 999 and expect the police to speed to your rescue for that incident. Everything is worse in the small hours, especially after months of harassment, but you have to remember what else the police are having to deal with at that time.

I'm sorry you are going through such an unpleasant experience with your neighbours and hope you get some peace soon.

Do not engage. If this situation happens again record it and keep a log of all incidents. Anything else is playing into their hands.

Your situation sounds horrendous, and hopefully they will get evicted and you can start to move on.

You could follow up with your local police station and ask someone to take your statement.

I was harassed by a neighbour, and I dialled 999 when he tried to brick my front window when I was home just with another female friend.

The police didn't send a response to me either (I'm white btw), so likely the fact that the police see anti social behaviour as way down the priority list.

I was pissed off about it though, so followed up the next day as I wanted it on record. Howp you get things sorted.

OP you were naive to ask them to be quiet at 3 am and expect a pleasant response. Obviously nobody should be making loads of noise at 3 am but in this instance you should have ignored them. There is nothing racist about the police not rushing to your home for that at 3 am and I can assure you the police wouldn't rush to anyone's home at that time for a situation like that. Do you have cctv covering all your property? If not get it asap to protect yourself from false allegations. Some people simply are unable to live in streets with other people because they are to entitled and rude. Unfortunately its also difficult to get the police or housing associations to deal with anti social behaviour quickly which means it tends to escalate.
.

Please point to the part where I've said it was unreasonable for the police to have come out. My post literally says the police were never coming out at 3am for that, but somehow you're trying to pretend I've not elucidated that.

If some is shouting at 3am and when told to shut up, they put their phone on and start shouting what did you say, did you just call me a white bitch, then it's disingenuous to claim that is not mired in racism.

Telling someone to shut up at 3am is a fairly measured reasonable response to unreasonable behaviour, its really not going to derail the court case - which presumably has ample evidence to have initiated it.

Yes, really martial arts.

Its a lot more than "being able to beat people up", the confidence and aura you project when you've done it a while helps people stop being targeted... its also a good way to connect with others and burn off stress

I hate to disturb your bubble with a sharp slice of reality, but "Virtually all the replies" means nothing in terms of validity of the singular or collective message. A pile on is a pile on. End of

Hope you're ok OP, sounds really stressful and upsetting overall, hopefully now the wheels are in motion on court/landlord proceedings fingers crossed they'll be out. Tbh I think the police will see right through what she's trying to do and no one will believe her, it's very clearly childish manipulative behaviour where she's trying to play the victim and uno reverse her own behaviour. That's one of the oldest tricks for lots of types of perpetrators, and the police are wise to it.
Look after yourself OP, sending strength ❤️ xx

More to the point, what about all the other horrible racist things happening to her. I'm always wary when there seems to be overwhelming evidence of racism and then people home in on the one tiny thing that can be nit picked over as an example of ' oh look, it's really her who's the problem. She's like all the others. They are always using the race card. " It's such an obvious tactic to discredit and minimise.

Exactly, people must think others are stupid

Poster makes distressing post that clearly evidences they've been living under extreme duress in their own home/neighbour for a considerable enough length of time for things to have escalated to a court hearing...

however, people somehow want to focus on making her in the wrong for essentially standing up for herself in a reasonably measured way at 3am in the morning, when another one of the street bullies has decided she is going to wake her up by shouting??

Its quite obvious what is happening here on this thread and its good to see other people are calling it out for what is it is, even if we are in the unpopular minority.

At best, its encouraging people to be a doormat and accept shit behaviour from others to keep the peace that doesn't even exist 😆

I agree the police service is not working anymore and needs reformed. Probably needs more money spent on it but it does not seem like the UK can afford it. I have a friend in the police (now retired) and frontline policing is utterly stripped to the bone with nobody wanting to work in it. They have a tiny amount of officers responding to 999 calls and often have officers stuck at hospital minding someone who has threatened suicide although I believe they are now refusing to deal with mental health so much which I think is quite right.

Officers are getting abused and attacked my the public on a regular basis and the criminals getting a tiny sentence if at all for attacking an officer which is a disgrace. They are all trying to leave and the police have lowered their standards to be able to recruit. Unfortunately that is not working particularly well either and I know of new recruits wanting to leave during their training before they even start working with the public.

Anyone want to see how little respect the police are treated with nowadays should watch police zero (you can see it on you tube). Shocking and scary given these guys are meant to protect us but are getting hurt themselves. We need to bring back tougher policing and severe penalties for breaking the law. I think it is shameful that we are expecting the police to deal with knives and weapons without being armed. My friend had to deal with an armed hostage situation with his radio and pava spray/baton. The armed police took hours to turn up and deal with it and he was seriously shook up by it.

I don't think the OP situation was a 999 situation but I do think the police should follow it up just not as an emergency. I hope you get it resolved OP.

Sorry everyone, I'm aware I did that annoying thing of posting and disappearing. I haven't had a look at the responses yet but I appreciate it's a divisive issue and there's no such thing as an invalid opinion, so I appreciate them all (well I say that but then I'll no doubt read some that make my eye twitch 😬).

I can see that on the surface, it's actually not a massive thing. It's just the latest thing in a long line of things - and I'm so exhausted that anything could be the straw that broke the camel's back. Last night (this morning) the allegation that I'd been racist was the equivalent of a crackhead throwing themselves on my car bonnet in slow motion then claiming I'd hit them. It just really pissed me off and I think I'm probably more sensitive because I'm worried that the police will change their stance on treating ethnic minorities with sensitivity (which actually doesn't always happen) because of the pressure on them due to recent events.

I'll read the replies but just wanted to say something, as I didn't mean to post and run.

The issue isn’t that the Police see ASB as being way down the priority list, it’s that policing is so broken, so woefully under resourced, that we are forced to triage every incident according to risk and act accordingly, lower risk incidents get pushed to the bottom of the pile, simply because there aren’t enough cops to attend everything.

When I started in the job, I was part of a team of about 20 cops to cover a 10 mile square area, there were enough of us that we could attend every single incident that came in within a couple of hours, including ASB and low risk jobs. We rarely struggled for resources.
In contrast, now, we put out about 8 cops for about three times the area, so you can see how things have changed.

Our force is seeing a huge rise in motorbike related disorder, which is terrifying (for us as much as any member of the public, because we are residents ourselves and many of us experience it in our personal lives) yet we can’t do anything about it because…. We just can’t.
It’s not because we don’t want to. it’s an absolute shit show.

I would beg to differ. Falsley accusing me of racial abuse whilst putting on a dramatic performance, whislt filming me, is pretty offensive. Maybe that's just me!

Offensive maybe, but certainly NOT 999 worthy.
It’s s pity we can’t fine people for wasting police time like this. Non emergency line -fair enough but come on. Literally all that happened was a bit of childish name calling and attempting to wind you up. Which you fell for with remarkable ease

For those saying I abused the 999 number, in all of the months and years of this I never have done. I have had false allegations made against me as part of the harassment by this neighbour, which have resulted in the police carting me away on two occasions. I panicked because I had been falsely accused of a serious offence and I was genuinely terrified that this idiotic nutter was setting things up for another allegation (she was filming me whilst making this lie up). I was terrified of being arrested about something made up again, so although my judgement was indeed off, I had a good reason to call them as I was in fear.

Justify it to yourself all you like. It won’t make you right

Thanks for your considered response.

There is obviously a huge amount of background which I haven't included - and I'm not here to drip feed. My life is not that interesting to plaster every detail on here. That said, I can see how it would read without me explaining things.

The case started as harassment and although it took me a long time to be taken seriously by the police (harassment is obviously hard to prove) I felt heard when I was finally able to give my MG11 last year. The OIC worked within the PVPU and she had a really good understanding of it all - she saw the pattern of behaviour. This person's behaviour then escalated to racism a few weeks after I'd given the statement and I had strong video evidence, which the CPS charged within 5 days of it being submitted. That was good - but the harassment never stopped. Some police 'get' it and some really don't.

I always call 101 or contact the police online. I panicked last night because I was worried about being dragged away due to false allegations, again. They have form for that - and whilst I understand that the police have to take things at face value and respond to what they are told, it's soul destroying being arrested, humiliated and carted off for something you haven't done. I just couldn't face it happening again.

I shouldn't have called 999 but I didn't know what else to do, in that moment.

Are you just here to be a crank? Kick me when I'm down? Thanks for your valuable input.

I understand that you were frightened and possibly not thinking rationally, in the middle of the night, but you should have just shut your window on this ridiculous woman. You know that what you reported did not warrant a 999 call and blue light response. You were hoping police would attend and believe your version not hers because you had called them? Wasting resources that you know are stretched too thinly is not helping anyone.

Thank you. In the light of day, I was wrong to call 999 (and as I've said, I never do as I'm against it being misused) but I was genuinely afraid of being dragged away again. The police might not have arrested her for making that lie up but they would have arrested me if she'd called them. That's just how it works - and that's why unconcious bias will always exist within the police.

I would agree that the wording of some of the policies around diversity is a bit nuts - but the principle behind it is there because we don't live in an equal society. Sad but true. I have trauma from how I've been treated at times by the police - yet I try to keep perspective and see each officer as an individual, rather than holding onto anger against the entire force. I'm human so it's not always easy!!

I hope this is a troll post. Pretending to expect special treatment and saying you don’t get it, because you are a poc is very Ali G comedy.