20p (warning - triggering)

[enimmead]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-18373422

I'm sure you've heard the story. A 22 year old woman was turfed off a bus at 3am because she did was short of 20p on a £5 fare. CCTV showed her spending 8 mins looking for the money.

No one offered her the money. She left the bus and walked through a park to meet her mum. She was violently raped and had horrendous head injuries.

All for 20p.

It breaks my heart.

Oh yes, you are right, stopping rapists is the ultimate.
However, there is a lesson there for women out on their own, surely.

I am probably putting this really badly and I can see you don't mean to upset, but I am finding your posts so hard to read, BoE.

I don't see how there can be a 'lesson'? Implying this woman was at fault, is like saying it's somehow her fault she was raped. I find that really upsetting. I just don't think it's true at all.

There was another thread on this which I had to hide as I got so angry. But on that thread I pointed out that

a. bus company rules say that drivers are able to carry people short of their fare if they are a child or seem vulnerable in some way. So he could have taken her
b. She was talking to him for 8 minutes and trying to persuade him to let her go to the cash point opposite from the bus to get the money. He refused.
c. She also said her mum was meeting her at the other end and her mum could pay the 20p. This was not good enough either.

So he could easily have taken her, and he chose not to.

ergo he is a right bastard. And it would still have been a bastard thing to do even if nothing bad had happened to the woman.

I have given people money on night buses.
I have stopped to ask people if they are OK if it seems there is something wrong.
This seems normal to me, and i am grateful to the people who have done the same for me.
This story is awful.

SQ - I didn't know about the company policy to let people on if they are vulnerable. That sounds really excellent. I take back my comments saying we should not be angry with him.

I still feel very strongly that the level of anger towards the passengers, and even towards the driver who did not do his job properly, is shockingly out of proportion with the level of anger towards the rapist.

I'm sorry, but I can't help feeling cynically that this story is getting the responses it is getting because it is more convenient to blame people who don't protect women, than to make sure women don't need protecting.

i gave about the equivelent of 20p to a guy who was a little short buying beer at a petrol station early one morning, he was telling the girl at the till that he 'really needed it', it was talking some time and i was late for work, when i gave it him he said 'god bless you!", i had to laugh, it wasnt charity i was late and just wanted to get on.

my point here is that the people on the bus must have been too far away and not known, 20p at 3 am is a good exchange for an 8 minute hold up.

Oh no, it is in no way her fault!

Hi all, just wanted to post for those who haven't read our Rape Myths Busted page.

Thanks Kat!

BoE - agreed!

It's unfortunate that the driver refused to let her on the bus but he may have not interpreted an adult woman with a few drinks inside her, arguing with him, as a 'vulnerable' person. It isn't anyone's fault but the rapist's, that the poor woman was raped. Not her fault, for being drunk and short of money - that doesn't mean she deserves rape. Not the bus driver's fault, for (possibly) misinterpreting the rules - even if he was a jobsworth tosser who could and maybe should have bent the rules, it's not his fault she was raped. As to the other passengers, as several posters have said, they may not have been aware that she only needed 20p, they may not have had 20p to spare themselves, or they may have been harassed by beggars in the past (it's a not-uncommon beggars' thing to claim to need money for your bus fare, you get wise to it when you see the same one doing it with the same story week after week).
It's nobody's fault but the rapist's.

I wasn't actually blaming the driver or the people on the bus for this. Of course women should be able to walk about without being attacked. I once gave a few pence to a very young couple short of a fare. I was in a hurry to get from A to B but it was during the day. They were really grateful.

Where were her friends; why did one of them not make sure she had enough money; and, as unfortunately women are vulnerable and debating the rights and wrongs of that is fruitless, why was she travelling alone?

FWIW i have given people the spare bit to make up the shopping/fare if they seem genuine. But on a bus at 3am? Chances are I'd be buried in a book avoiding trouble myself, probably swearing to myself about the fucking hold up. I doubt I'd have any idea what was going on unless I deliberately got up to ask. Which i wouldn't because the standard response to that would be Fuck Off You Nosy Bitch...

Why is it 'fruitless', purple? I'm not trying to be combative - I just don't get why it is?

Her friends might have separated after going out and gone in a different direction - it sounds as if she had a card to get money from the ATM, she was just unlucky with timing and the bus was about to go before she could get to it.

I am hoping perhaps the fact this story has been reported in the papers will lead to maybe more police patrols in the area. My mum used to work quite nearby and periodically something like this would happen and there would be a crackdown, but I think it's difficult changing an area that's known so much as an easy target for criminals. I don't think it is pointless to hope, though.

Simply because debate, here or elsewhere, can only lead to future changes. The street she was on/area she was in were potentially dangerous at the time this happened.

That's also why I used "fruitless" as in not going to change the established facts rather than "pointless" as in not worth debating - the debate is eminently worthwhile if it leads to future changes and increased awareness.

If that makes any sense...

Oh, I see what you mean - that we can't change the past? That is certainly true - though I tend towards feeling that what's happened to that women is still affecting her present, and although I have absolutely no reason to think she's sitting reading MN, someone who's had a similar experience probably is. There have been lots of threads where people say how it took them a long time to stop blaming things other than their rapist for what happened ... so I guess, in that sense, that's why I think discussing it (and putting the blame squarely on the rapist rather than going through the 'what ifs' about her friends or the bus driver) is still important.

(I get what you're saying about fruitless as opposed to pointless, btw. Hope my post makes sense too.)

I think we agree?

The situation at 3am that morning was dangerous for a woman.

We can't change that.

We can put pressure on the relevant people to ensure that 3am tomorrow morning is less dangerous for women.

Yes?

Yes!

We agree on that. I think where we disagree is on the value of discussing what people other than the rapist could have done differently. Not because I'm suggesting there is something noble or even decent about the bus driver refusing her on, just because I think these things ... 'what if I'd let her on my bus? What if we'd given her that 20p? What if I hadn't gone out that night/I'd gone home a different way/I'd stayed over with a friend/I'd run a bit faster to get to the cash machine? ... they are all the sort of worries that can really prey on your after the fact, and make you feel like it's your fault, or partly your fault.

I don't know if that makes sense? I'm sure that woman (and everyone on that bus too, and probably that woman's friends and family) will be thinking these things over anyway - how could you not? - but if we had her here, we'd all be saying, 'look, don't think about it: you didn't do something wrong, the rapist did'.

It makes complete sense, and those are all the things that lead the victim into the spiral of thinking called PTSD (well it did for me after a violent break in, anyway, and the dr said i was a pretty classic presentation) which is why we need to keep improving Victim Support and shouting We Believe You.

The rapist was the one who was wrong. That's indisputable. However, in our imperfect world there will always be those what-ifs

Oh, that rotten. PTSD is horrible, I've known people who've suffered from it and it is really hard. Sorry to hear that.

I'm with you on the shouting We Believe You! Absolutely.

I honestly hope the victim gets some decent support, because what happened to me is nothing like as horrific as being raped must be (front door kicked in by thugs too stupid to know the difference between houses - mine is well maintained with lots of plants, unlike the junkie dealers next door the dumb fuckers had been paid to beat up)

We believe you.

I hope so too. She's very brave to have her story printed like that, too - that can't be easy.

I agree with what you're saying LRD. All the "what ifs" are not helpful because none of it would have mattered if the rapist hadn't been there and no one could have known that he was. No one can predict the future and suggesting that by doing certain things you can prevent rape is nasty and pointless because it suggests that if you do get raped you did something wrong by not predicting that it would happen in that situation. No one wants to get raped, and no one knowingly does anything to put themselves in danger of being raped. What happened to that poor girl is actually quite rare (thankfully) and she was just very unlucky that a whole series of circumstances came together to put her in the wrong place at the wrong time. Without that rapist, nothing at all would have happened to her.

Rape aside, I'd be angry at a bus driver kicking someone off the bus at 3am in these circumstances (again not the rape)!

I'm nosey, I guess, I like to know who's getting on and off, if the bus stops for a long time, especially at night, I'd want to know why. I am always the first to get up and help, I've given money to people on the street, a lady in a baby shop who was 10p short and they wouldn't sell her the item she wanted for it (not a big item of furniture but enough that the 10p should have been neither here nor there), people on the bus.

When I was about 15 I got on the bus with £1.24, fare was 25p. I had an argument on the driver because he said it was 50p because I was getting off at the college (I wasn't going to the college, it's just in the middle of a residential area and without knowing the roads it was the only landmark). So when he eventually accepted child fare from me he wasn't going to let me off with 1p and tried to kick me off. I stood at the front of the bus and loudly said "Could anyone change ONE POUND for me as the driver wants ONE PENNY!" A little old lady said "Here you go love, I can spare it" the driver was so embarrassed he grunted "Just get on!" at

The rapist is the only one to blame.
As an ex bus driver i can tell you only an inspector can make the decision of letting on a passenger without the correct fare being tendered. The bus driver will undoubtedly have had dozens of late night revelers who did not have enough money to pay for their ticket.
Go into any supermarket hungry and try being 20p short for a pasty and see if anyone chips in to help out or if the store lets you off.
Had nothing happened to the woman nobody would have batted an eye lid.
We as human being have to take responsibility for ourselves and stop relying on others.
That said the rapist is a disgusting pile of steaming crap that should be banged up in a cell with a gorilla in heat with a banana shoved up his ass.