Jumped and mugged last night - Random reflections

Sorry to hear about the mugging. Glad you're OK.

One thing to keep an eye on is your mental health following the attack. It might sound a bit silly, but pay attention to how you react to people around you including your family. I chap I know of was beaten up badly a while back and is suffering PTSD, but he won't accept that he has problems and needs some help. This has led on to his marriage breaking down and other personal issues. So keep a watch on your mental health and, if necessary, seek out help sooner rather than later.

 

No that's absolutely a fair comment and I completely agree. There were a couple of things in play there I think.

1. I didn't feel very much like "oh my god something serious has just happened" probably due to shock. I was texting someone before it happened and I just went back to texting them straight after and told them I got beaten up, it was when I said I'd been mugged that it felt like a more serious crime and I realised I should call it in, and also because I twigged it might be possible to catch the people.

2. I didn't really expect much to come of a report. There's a really awful sense in the UK that the police are, well, kind of a disappointment for the most part. Not through a fault of individual officers per se, but you very very rarely get to hear about the success stories and the police aren't exactly celebrated over here. So, all you ever hear about the police if anyone mentions them is their bad experiences. Sometimes that's due to unreasonable expectations that the police can snap their fingers and solve crimes, sometimes its just bad luck. Personally my faith in the police had been shaken over the last year due to the complete disinterest shown to the issues I've mentioned at work with thefts and intimidation and whatnot. Objectively I know that's because the police have to prioritise and austerity etc etc etc, but its still a thing.

3. The much bigger reason though is because I have such a strong sense of not wanting to waste emergency services time, and I'm aware of time wasters, my threshold for calling 999 is basically a murder in progress. Because the crime had occurred I thought I'd be wasting 999 time to report it after the fact, and out non-emergency contact options are, with the greatest respect to the officers on this site, shockingly crap. Now its all happened I realise it was a perfectly valid reason to call 999 and my threshold for calling it is far too high.

 

I will, I promise

 

Glad you're OK and thanks for sharing your experience

 

Wow, because of time zones all of this was written when I was asleep. But, ya, what Dunc said!

 

Thanks mate. I have been thinking on Frodo's post quite a lot, but I do seem to be alright bar some sleeping problems. Got to use it to convince the girlfriend to play board games all day so it seems to have been worth it

 

As I approach 50 I realise the priorities of young men have changed dramatically since my day

Look after yourself; Frodo is, as always, quite right. The aftermath of traumatic events can be odd and far-reaching, so monitor yourself and have others watch you too. We don't always react immediately, nor as we thought we would.

 

Cheers dude!

I did the opposite in fact, and still haven't gone back to a gym. Been probably 2 years and about 20kgs of chubbiness since I last did a proper training session. I have been looking into getting back into it all quite a bit recently though now I've finished uni, its just a question of whether I can spare any money for it. Never have done jkd though, my background was BJJ and K1 mixed into doing amateur level mma. Although I have heard there is a fairly decent jkd place around here that also throw kali in and that does sound like a fun mix.


As a general update, some of the court cases have finally occurred over the last month. A mr 'youth offender 1' pled guilty and owes me £500 along with seeing some youth offending team for a year. Another pled not guilty and I'm due in court for that at the end of October and am not looking forward to it. Been nearly a year since it happened and I barely remember it at this point. My impression is the case won't be a denial it happened, but a question of whether this specific person was involved and I couldn't ID people at the time it happened, yet alone this far down the line. The day of the sentencing for the former there were 4 other people due plea hearing but I haven't heard anything since on the results. Not too sure who I can contact to ask about that either, so just waiting to see if I do eventually hear anything. Court appearance dude wasn't even mentioned in the initial letter I got about all the other hearings and the first I knew of his name was getting the summons so a bit confused what's going on with the whole thing really.

Personally, it definitely effected me more than I initially thought it did. Would get the shakes incredibly badly anytime there was a hint of anything going wrong at work that could turn potentially confrontational which has been quite embarassing and has only just started to tail off. On the positive side the couple times there have situations that looked very close to turning violent I've been the first staff member to rush over, so that's made me feel a bit better about the whole thing.

 

Laws vary in different jurisdictions of course, and I don't know where you are based, but in the UK this is completely wrong.

You have an absolute right to strike first if circumstances warrant it, eg if you were in genuine fear of violence to your person.

Any statement given to authorities should reflect that of course.

Advising someone not to pre-empt is potentially very damaging, heck it's potentially fatal, so any MAP member reading this should take the time to familiarise themselves with their local laws and ensure they train to act accordingly.