Manchester Crime Gets Close To Home
By Jim Symcox on Nov 18, 2007 in Manchester Crime
It’s funny, you think you live in a relatively crime free area.
The suddenly…WHAM!
You get stuff stolen and children threatened and beaten up.
It started when my brand new Walkman mobile went walkies by itself from the house. Hmm…
Then the eldest child (EC) borrowed my brand new replacement phone and unbeknownst to me goes into Manchester to play in the fountains at Picaddilly Gardens. And of course he puts his coat down on the side so the phone doesn’t get wet. The inevitable happens and a yob grabs it and legs it. The EC gives chase and the yob hares of, first ditching the coat. Of course in the first few seconds the phone had gone!
Then that night I inadvertently leave the garage door open. I hear an unusual noise outside and go and investigate. And find two bikes are missing and one is strangely on the other side of our six foot gates. Of course a lout had scrambled up over the gate and half-inched the bikes and put them over the gate. Which must have taken a bit of nerve.
Finally some days later the EC tells us about his friend (she’s a girl) who gotten beaten up by some other girls at Bowker Vale station. We listened politely and thought that sounds a bit excessive.
The later that same day said friend and EC bump into a few more friends in the village and these girls go for the friend. The EC lifts them off and puts them to onside, because they’re girls. Except they’ve got friends too, who are two boys with knives. The EC sees them and wallops them with a punch in the face even though he gets a knife scratch for his trouble.
And did we report any of this to the police?
Well we reported the bikes, and nothing happened. And with little to no proof about anything else it seemed pointless to report the other stuff.
And so we avoid becoming yet another crime statistic. So that means the number of crimes reported is missing our few. So if we don’t report crimes and there are others like us, does that mean Manchester is a heaving, seething mass of criminals?
bullying cycle theft knife crime Manchester Crime
Ads from Manchester | Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
Very scary! I was planning to move to Manchester, but now I’m wondering about Glasgow…
Jim Symcox | Nov 27, 2007 | Reply
Ads,
yes bits of Manchester can be a challenge, but then again any place where you have lots of people can become “interesting.”
Diane | Dec 13, 2007 | Reply
Sometimes the world seems a scary place.
It is always worth reporting things though – even if you only ring them up on 872 5050 to ask to report some damage or a loss. They can then log the incident. Without logging incidents they have no idea of issues and there might be dozens of people being attacked or robbed in that area but without them being reported they can’t help increase patrols. Also money is given out according to the recorded crime – another reason to report things.
With phones a useful tip is to find out the IMEI number and record it somewhere safe at home. Then if the phone gets nicked you can report it as missing and the networks can in theory kill it off.
Same goes with the serial numbers on things – write them down! I’ve helped start a homewatch on my street and we’ve got some UV pens to mark property with and loads of useful information too.