They don't lurk anymore

I'm having a Fran grump.

Take cover.

I am no stranger to the criminal justice system, this we know.

More than is a healthy relationship and more often than not, leaves me crippled in an emotional mental health heap that usually requires professional help.

I say usually, always.

Alas, upon reading my favourite local newspaper, and one that has been kind to me in the past, I'm enraged.

There have been moments over the past few years, where I have seen an article that provokes my anger and out of care and sensitivity to Sarah, I've let it lie and held my tongue.

Today is not one of those days.

However it began as all good days do.

Coffee, kisses, breakfast, and at least for Sarah, working from home today and me meandering through another fruitful furlough Wednesday....

A little scroll through social media, and for the second time this week, there is an article about a woman being fined £150 for littering, nay, dropping a bit of butty for a pigeon to snack on.

Scandalous.

In Piccadilly Gardens non the less! Because of course, in the armpit of Manchester City Centre, a rogue baguette is what one should focus on, not the spice epidemic, the systematic and increasingly alarming rate of homelessness and poverty, no no, its some poor girls lunch scraps.

Dare I say, £150 seems a little exessive for odds and ends of Greggs delights, especially when paired with the fine assigned to an actual crime - the attempted rape of my now wife, and beautiful partner, Sarah.

Of course, that's not what Manchester Magistrates called it, when the man in question was sentenced back in 2012.

No, it was an attempted sexual assualt, and considering this man was "known" to police, and this was not his first offence, HOW, how, that disgusting bastard got off with the following sentence, I will never ever understand.

"A 7pm curfew, a ban from Piccadilly Gardens for "x" amount of months, and a victim compensation order of £150,"

This is a man who sat opposite Sarah outside the court room, and grinned as he walked in to enter a last minute guilty plea - a guilty plea in this country generally denotes a third reduction in sentencing, which is often not received well when entered at the point of entering a plea, not entering a trial.

The spineless shit.

One would hope, that as per the sentencing guildelines of our so-called justice system, and having been and on the receiving end as such, that a man, who has been apprehened and known to the police for attacking and stalking young women in the city of Manchester on countless occasions, would not walk away from a court room a free man.

We had had a wonderful night out with friends, at a classic student haunt, because, at the time, Sarah was indeed a student.

And as all students do in this fair city of ours, they get the magic bus back to Fallowfield or yonder.

And so, we walked, via a particularly good chinese take out place, through China town and towards the bus station.

Upon leaving China town, we felt a presence and heard footsteps behind us. Holding hands, and said bag of Chinese food, we walked a little quicker, so did the footsteps behind us, Sarah stepped closer to me and we turned the corner at Marks and Spencers on Piccadilly Plaza or whatever the fuck they call it these days and POUNCE.

I was pushed out of the way, bag of chinese food in hand and Sarah was dragged from my grip and into a dark and dingy alcove, with perverted mans hands and breath in places no sick fucks hands and breath should be.

I gathered myself and grabbed the fucker. Sarah had managed to push him off, before said hands could enter places I would chop said fuckers hands off for touching.

Somewhere in between flashbacks to my own trauma, I chased that prick across Piccadilly Gardens.

Now this in itself, is no wonderwoman feat, because in all reality, it should have been the middle aged StageCoach bus driver who had watched the entire ordeal and done NOTHING, and duly seen the pervert flee and done NOTHING.

Sarah rang 999 and I pursued the wannabe rapist.

And there in Piccadilly Gardens, I held him, until the Police arrived on seen, and in my rage I asked him why the fuck he felt he had the right to do this and he looked me dead in the eye and said "because you girls make it so easy,"

He was carted into the back of a police van where they took his details and the police officer who arrested him, told us he was known to them for this sort of thing.

Disgusting.

That a dirty little prick like that was lurking in Piccadilly Gardens and freely.

The policeman gave Sarah some lovely advice, to keep her house key in her hand and should anyone ever accost her again, to poke them in the eye with said key.

However, in this fair city, it would seem more likely Sarah would get done for assualt than this monster for predatory behaviour.

And lo' the defence for this penis pending?

A cultural misunderstanding.

In his country, he told the judge, this sort of thing was acceptable.

Which is fine love.

But you're in Manchester now and the law says NO FUCKING WAY.

Or apparently, slap slap naughty dick, keep it in your pants, stay away from the area and try and behave yourself.

Several months later, and on her birthday non the less, Sarah got a cheque for £20 in the post from the victims compensation. Poor little pervert apparently couldn't afford the compensation order of £150 and was paying in installments.

Well also, FUCK YOU. As when I had a stonker of a victim compensation order to pay and rightly so, "couldn't afford," did not come into it.

As far as the CJS consider fraud and compensation, if you don't pay, you go before a judge and you go to jail.

If you snatch at the pants of a young woman in the dark spots of Piccadilly Gardens however, you can pay in pennies if you like.

I digress.

£150 for feeding / accidentally feeding the pigeons of Manchester seems a little steep, and a little out of sorts with what the real priorities should be for the delgihts of Piccadilly Gardens.

Might I recommend investing in some CCTV perhaps?

Use these fines to make it a safer place?

Because upon charging this bastard, the police told Sarah and I, without doubt, there was no available CCTV footage to show the judge.

I have walked and walked for years and years through the gauntlet of big brother that is the piccadilly precinct and I can tell you, as you fellow Mancs will know, there are fucking globe CCTV cameras everywhere, one in particular, outside Marks and SPencer.

I myself traunched into City Tower to demand the footage, and was told by the police that my vigilante justice would do no good.

Well I can assure you PC fuckwit, if I ever, and I mean ever, see that bastard again, I hope there is no CCTV to show in a courtroom of what I would do.

It took every fibre of my being not to rip him limb from limb when I had him in my hands, but I gave him to you to punish, and you didn't.

And yet, the MEN will continue to report bullshit stories whereby someone had their leg touched on a bus and the world stopped to find the sicko that did it.

Some pervert grabbed an arse or a tit unsolicited and it is disgusting but it has become so unpunished and unchecked that it is somehow unafraid.

These men that lurk, don't lurk.

They wait. They follow. They slalk. They grab. They grope. They leer, sneer, photograph, and ultimately traumatise the women of this city. 

Because for women, and for sexual assualt, and rape there is no justice.

So if you see me feeding the pigeons, you can kiss my fucking arse.

Let's just call it a cultural misunderstanding, because in my country, we love the fucking pigeons mate.