A 12-year-old girl is beaten and stamped on by a crowd of teenagers on a crowded bus. A man is punched to the ground and kicked repeatedly in the head in an almost deserted London street. Gun-wielding robbers threaten a cashier in a petrol station.
Witnesses in five separate incidents are forced to decide – intervene and risk their own safety or disengage and turn away. Whether they choose the path of a have-a-go-hero or passive bystander, their decisions will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
The first-hand testimonies of those involved are intercut with CCTV footage and dramatic reconstruction, as the stories unfold to reveal the split-second choices that were made.
Whilst some witnesses are seemingly paralysed by fear, others step in. Some escape unscathed while others pay a heavy price for their courage..
CH4 Cutting Edge (Thanks Cat)
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The only solution is to become a troglodytic hermit.
I have always intervened and so far I have been lucky. I do feel that if everybody did stand up to these people a lot less crime would occur.
If we all stand up, we can make a difference.
We need to be brave like our forefathers and find some gumption.
I’d love to play the hero – but i guess it depends on what you’ve got to lose. I’d risk my life for derren was getting hurt,
LOL. The odds of my being in this situation are so little, that I\’d sooner suppose I was hallucinating and promptly take off all my clothes and fly away. My story would hit the headlines sooner than the robbed petrol station and I\’d probably get some good pills for a few years in a hospital with a widescreen TV.
It’s easy to say you would do something when sat comfortably at home, but when faced with the real threat of a situation would the decision still stand. I would try to help, but I would also try to rally others into helping as well – but I could not just sit there. The young girl on the bus!!! there were 30 or more people on that bus, and could have easily overcome the group if they intervened together.
I remember back when I was about 12 and my mate told me about a time when he was on the tram and some lads pulled a knife out on him and told him to give them his phone. He did it and they punched him anyway. He was bleeding from the head and had to actually get off the tram and go into the newsagents for help because even though he was on a crowded tram nobody bothered to help him.
It really shocked me at the time that no one would bother helping him but now it doesn’t shock me so much, a lot of people really are crap.
I’d like to think I’d help in that kind of situation, although I guess I can’t really tell until I’m in one. I’m not the most confident person ever, or strong or even remotely scary looking. In fact on a hell of a lot of occasions people have said how innocent I look, so I’m not sure how much help I’d be anyway, but I’d still like to think I’d do SOMETHING, even if it would just be making sure someone was alright AFTER the muggers have gone.
Its not very comforting to think that there are probably more confident people out there though who don’t give a damn enough to help someone when they’re being mugged.
It’s basically a coin toss whether you get the upper hand in that situation or whether you end up as victim no. 2.
I can’t speak about strangers. The closest I came to this scenario was when I was living in Manchester bedsits and a housemate who’d only moved in in the last 10 months brought along her slightly deranged boyfriend. I barely knew her at the time. When it all came to a head, she’d dumped him about 3 months previous, but he wouldn’t take the hint.
He would ring the doorbell constantly and demand to be let in. When she’d let him in (bad move) he’d want to know who she’d been phoning, although their relationship had been officially over for a fair while. The front door window got punched in two weeks in a row next to where the latch was and blood was dripping down it, though he didn’t succeed in getting in as it was toughened safety glass. When I asked her if it could be him, she responded that it couldn’t be because he was in hospital that morning having his hand stitched up (a pretty naive assessment i thought, but I let it pass). He became increasingly unstable, breaking into the flat through open upper floor windows. The first time it was daylight and we thought no more of it. The second time it was 1.40am and he was loitering in the dark waiting for her. I was woken up by the ensuing arguments and his maniacal ringing of the doorbell. At that stage my blood was up and I was ready for a confrontation.
He wanted the gifts he’d given her during their relationship back (he’d done that several times but backed out at the last minute as an excuse for repeat visits and further intimidation). Her latest date was trying to reason with him, but he shot back with “I don’t want to talk about it”. At that point, I snapped and said “Well I want to talk about why we’re having this discussion at 1.40 in the f***ing morning”. At which point he punched me in the face. It wasn’t a hard punch, but I thought best not to bring out the hammer I was concealing in my bathrobe pocket as defence in case it turned nasty.
We gave him back a mirror, a goldfish bowl and a VCR, and as he left he told us he was going to come back later with a gun. At the time I thought he was just full of crap, but when I discovered his footprints in the soapscum on the bathroom windowsill next day I thought it would be best to call the police.
To cut a long story short, the phorensic team showed up when everyone was out of the house, so his break in was left unproven. We were told that he’d claimed he was let in by other housemates so it was his word against ours. We were also told that unless he was actually in the act of robbing us, killing us or raping us it didn’t count as a crime! So the case against him hinged not on his reign of intimidation on my housemate, but on the trivial punch he’d landed on my left cheek. As he had previous form for stabbing someone repeatedly with a pen, there was a real possibility his upcoming jail sentence would be completely down to my ‘assault’.
So his mum and equally unhinged stepdad payed me an unannounced social call a month later and told me in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t retract my police statement the next day they’d send assorted lowlifes round to lynch me. I initially reported that too once I’d steadied my nerves, but in the end, the whole thing was way too much hassle for a simple act of intervention on behalf of a flatmate. I was in way over my head. I retracted my statement, as I was due to move out anyhow, and I didn’t want that moving house with me.
Up until then I thought this kind of stuff only happens on Eastenders. Perhaps that’s where they got the idea!
In conclusion, it’s easy to judge from the sidelines, but not so easy to intervene if you find yourself in the thick of it and you’re not used to dealing with violent criminally unhinged types.
Link to interesting article which gives a good overview of some of the research into bystander apathy and why some people will intervene but others don’t: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/archive/2006fallwinter/keltnermarsh.html
guess it makes me wonder where the word samaritan comes from.
With the three questions I\’d very much hope that in one and two, I\’d attempt to intervene. As for the cashier, I might advise he give him the money but wouldn\’t try and stop the robbery itself. The money is insured and it not worth a life but direct violence, the only thing I can hope is that I would have the courage to help.
As a kid walking home from school I was targetted by a couple of adults, probably mid twenties. One threatened to bite my nose off if I didn\’t give him my wallet – ridiculous sounding but very scary at 14. In a total panic I lied and said I didn\’t have a wallet, despite the guy grabbing at it in my coat pocket. Eventually his mate dragged him off and they ran. I\’m still not sure if I was totally stupid (everything in the wallet was replaceable) or brave in a terrified way. I think it was more fight than flight, as I didn\’t run, but either way it was a horrible experience.
It would depend on the situation. In general, I think I would try to intervene and protect a stranger, but considering I am only 5’2″ and 110 lbs, I am not very scary, lol! However, if anyone ever tried to mess with my kids- I could kill with my bare hands! Look out for Momma Bear!!!!
Wow, great article Katherine.
My weirdest bystander moment happened fairly shortly after I moved to Russia. I saw a guy messing with someone’s unzipped bag on the Metro but I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing; then we made eye contact and he didn’t flinch or glare at me. He was, in fact, (OBViously) robbing a girl, but I didn’t say or do anything, and I can’t exactly remember what was going through my head at the time.
The really weird thing, though, is that when the train stopped and we were getting off (and after the guy had slipped away somewhere) I tapped the girl and said, in my stumbling Russian “um your bag… open… there was a man?” She freaked out immediately because her wallet had been stolen. I hesitated a bit then got out of there because I didn’t see any way of remedying the situation and I was feeling mighty guilty by then.
What I find strange is that I didn’t comment while the theft was happening, and it was my lack of Russian that (I thought) stopped me – I couldn’t find the words to check whether something bad was happening, so I said nothing. Of course, I should just have made noises and alerted the girl; something was clearly wrong and my self-consciousness shouldn’t have been a priority. Another thing I remember is a sort of brain-freeze where I kept not-quite-recognising-for-certain what exactly he was doing. I know this sounds dumb. I think it was because I didn’t want to stand out at all (I was neurotically keen to be invisible in the crowd during my first few months living abroad) so I actually, desperately wanted *not* to act, and lied myself into a situation where I didn’t quite see that I needed to.
The bit that keeps feeling weird is that as soon as I wasn’t able to influence the situation any more, I was perfectly fine with comunicating with the girl and “helpfully” telling her she’d just been robbed.
…. um. Just for the record, in case you now think I’m scum… I’ve also looked after sick and sad people on crowded streets & done useful stuff like checking if someone needed an ambulance (they did), but those situations don’t have a ‘baddie’ or someone to challenge, so heaven knows what I’d do if I saw something violent happening.
Sorry if this is rambly. It’s late and my sleepy brain is rubbish at editing.
Fortunately I’ve never been in such a bad situation – but heard enough tales to give me pause for thought. One friend stopped a bloke beating his wife up in the street – to have the wife attack him. Another confronted a group of young teenagers who then gave him a broken arm.
Since then I’ve realised that much of the time crowds don’t intervene because its not always clear someone should, and they want someone else to make the first move. So if I ever find myself being beaten up or such, I’m going to try my hardest to ask for help, yell that I’ve being attacked and basically make it clear this isn’t street theatre or such and direct what I need people to do.
In the opposite situation, I hope to try the first move of involving other people in the crowd to judge the situation (are they being mugged? do you think that hurts?) then step in whilst working hard on making others follow me. Both cases I’d just hope to break the feeling of being in the crowd and think what each person can do.
I can empathise with the brainfreeze aspect of it. Even if you decide “I should do something about this” the next question is “what should I do about it?”
I did find myself witnessing another event on a Manchester tram. A woman I took to be the mother of the 11 year old girl she was stood facing was giving her some unbelievably nasty verbal abuse at the top of her lungs, along the lines of “You’re nothing, you’re worthless, you’re a bitch, you’re a whore, I wish I’d never had you” along with some choice swear words. The rather demoralised looking 11 year old just stood there and took it.
This wasn’t just a quick flash of anger, it was a sustained rant that must have gone on for somewhere in excess of 15 minutes. Again all the passengers on the tram myself included had that rabbit in the headlamps expression. My interior monologue went something like: “should I say something, I should probably say something, what should I say, it’s not like social workers travel on every tram in Manchester, by the time I call social services they’ll be long gone. I don’t even have a number for social services. Even if I did intervene, It’ll only make it worse for the kid when she gets her home. I don’t have enough background to this argument to make a compelling counter-argument”.
The guy next to me who clocked that I was thinking the same thing he was said, “we should really do something” then like me spectacularly failed to act. They left the tram about 5 stops later.
I felt really pathetic afterwards for not at least attempting something, but knowing what to say and do isn’t easy under that kind of pressure.
It is impossible to know what you would do until you are in the situation.
My fiancee is a quiet man, not good with blood, can’t watch casualty or any other hospital program. But one night a few years ago he stopped to help at a car crash, the man had been thrown from his car and well…lost of the top of his skull.
He was still alive and my wonderful fiancee cradled that man in his arms until the ambulance arrived. He sadly died but the mans parents were so greatful that someone was with him at the end.
My darling man still has nightmares and it frightens me to think he sat in the middle of a pitch black country road whilst cars whizzed past and didn’t stop.
faye- It sounds like you are a lucky girl. What a kind man you have. If only there were more people in the world like him
I’ve got a good anaecdote for this one:
I was at Reading festival with a friend (who is 6ft 5 and heavily built) and some guy tried to pickpocket me. My friend saw him and promptly broke his arm like a twig.
Since he kind of stands out from the crowd the police saw this and promptly arrested him and took us to the security area. My friend explained what had happened and the police searched the man who tried to rob me and found 12 wallets in his bag.
The police then thanked my friend and apparently the thief broke his arm “resisting arrest”. We got let back in to the gig at the front and enjoyed the rest of the festival.
Yey to standing up to the theives of this world!!!
Nicosia I am very lucky. I don’t know how he coped at the time. As a trained nurse I wish I had been there instead to save him from the horrible nightmares he now has.
It is difficult, I mean like Alice I will phone an ambulance etc but the idea of taking on a ‘baddie’ is a bit much… you can put yourself in very real danger by intervening in a situation that you don’t have the power to stop… I’m only 5’3 and not particularly intimidating in my own right, I’d probably phone the Gaurds but wouldn’t actually get directly involved… luckily I’ve not been in a situation where I needed to.
That said, it is fantastic when someone comes to your aid when you are in an uncomfortable situation. A few months ago I was waiting on a tram and a very scary druken man decided to annoy me, a very nice young gentleman came over and pretended he knew me and just started chatting to me, which was enough to get the drunk to back off… so sometimes you can help someone in a non agressive way.
You will never know till the moment itself. Till then it is just theoretical. Ofcourse .. it’s best when more than one person will act in those moments .. if there are more than just yourself seeing something .. Normally more people indeed will act .. most are a bit too aware of their own fear, and their insight that just one person is not always enough, that it can get even worse ..
I HAVE always wonderered what I would do. As a woman, I think if I had to fight off a bunch of men, I would have to think twice. However when push comes to shove, I WILL intervene. Whether that means calling the police, screaming my lungs out, throwing things or getting help. I WILL NOT stand by and let someone get hurt.
When I lived in London, I had the terrible experience of having to fight off a man, who tried to sexually assault me. The Bastard got me from behind, and put his hand round my mouth to stop me from screaming. I fought as hard as I could, luckily I scratched him, and that DNA led to police arresting that Scum!
I was VERY fortunate. That man was sent to jail for 2 years, because he had a very long record of attacking women. I’m proud I put that bastard away. Sadly, not for too long though.
So, if I come across someone in need or danger, I know I have no choice but to intervene.
Hmmm.
I suppose it’d depend on the situation involved.
I do have a tendancy to want to stand up against most of the violent and needlessly abusive scumbags in this world.
I am normally a very quiet and gentle guy, but sometimes people manage to push all the right (or wrong, whichever way you look at it) buttons.
I also hate violence!
However, should someone happen to invoke a defensive reaction in me, they are more often than not, shocked by the person who I ‘become’. They usually have a choice, it’s up to them if they choose the right or wrong one.
Sometimes you do need to ‘fight fire with fire’.
Unfortunately, we (the good guys) are not all blessed with Derren’s abilities to control and manipulate suggestable minds with our own. Especially seeing as it would appear that the majority of the offender’s always tend to have a less-than-average mental capacity and are no doubt extremely suggestable!
Hey D!:
haha.
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You ever considered becoming a kind of subliminal super-hero?! … or possibly training an ‘underling’ to be able to do so?
Coops:
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I know he’s a busy guy, but just wondered if D happened to remember ‘the name’?
I would be coming to see him on his current tour but I’m completely skint!
(Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about the universe!?) <— now that’s an odd saying
To Faye – what a wonderful gent your fiancee is, and how lucky we are to have him in the gene pool!
Just a bit of advice from a psychology student if you haven’t already considered this – it sounds like he may be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (perfectly understandable under the circumstances) which tends to manifest in flashbacks, anxiety attacks etc in varying degrees. If he’s still experiencing these problems it may be worth approching his GP to gain access to counselling – talking therapies such as CBT have impressive success rates and can help ensure that he doesn’t end up regretting his remarkable and heart-warmingly alturistic good deed.
Personally, I live in the inner city and have intervened on a number of occasions, from violent incidents to applying first aid to people lying bleeding on the floor. It breaks my heart that we can register the suffering of another human being and not raise a finger to help – but it’s a complicated issue and well researched by a number of eminent psychologists (the late great Stanley Milgram was refused funding for research into bystander intervention a year before Kitty Genoveve was stabbed 67 times and left to bleed to death while a substantial number of people ignored her screms for help).
The lesson I take is that although there are certain ‘hard-wired’ behaviours connected to thses incidents, awareness of a mental phenomenon helps us to take control of it. If we read these stories and feel our stomachs squeeze, then maybe we’ll all be more likely to lend a hand when needed in future. x