Are you an interventionist or someone who leaves well alone? Do you try and quell a brewing storm or pretend not to hear? Do you step in or walk on by? Ian Montgomery is critically ill in hospital after he was stabbed in the chest when he went to help a woman being beaten up on a Nottingham street. The previous day Thomas Grant died of stab wounds after apparently trying to calm an argument on a train.
The tributes that have poured in for the two men have said that they were the sort who would always do the right thing. “He will have seen the young woman being assaulted in the street and it will have been natural for him to go and see if he could stop it,” said Stephen Montgomery, Ian’s father. “He would not have expected to be stabbed for his trouble.”
We would probably all like to think that faced with a stranger in distress we would try to help. But would we? Not long ago the hypothetical became reality when I heard an argument in our street. I did what I usually do when I hear a commotion outside, which is to take a peep out of the window. A couple were having a furious row a few yards from the house. I watched for a minute or two until it became apparent that this was a particularly vicious argument. He was calling her every degrading word that his moronic imagination could conjure up, starting with slag and becoming more offensive from there. When she screamed back he moved towards her in an intimidating way. Hesitantly, I opened the door and stood on the front step. Perhaps, if the moron saw that he was being watched he might stop. A couple of other men in the street had the same idea. Then the moron shoved his bike at the girl knocking her back against the railings. With this escalation we all edged, uncertainly, off our front steps. Possibly one of us would have said something, but we were all struggling to know what the next move should be. “F****** back off or I’ll f****** kill you,” yelled the moron.
I did the cowardly but probably most sensible thing: stepped back inside my doorway and dialled 999 on my mobile. By the time I had got through the moron was running off up the street, shouting at the girl that he was going round to her mother’s house to smash every window. We onlookers moved towards the girl. “Leave me alone!” she sobbed and ran off in pursuit.
The police always advise people not to try and play the hero. But whether or not to intercede is a difficult decision to make. On this occasion I and my fellow onlookers were saved by the moron fleeing the scene without resorting to serious violence. I wonder what I would have done if the guy had been raining blows on the woman.
Every public dispute is different from any other and so a witness can only assess the particular circumstances, weigh the dangers to him or herself and the level of peril of the victim, before making a split second calculation whether to act. More often than not the decision is probably an instinctive rather than a reasoned one. The tragedy is that it is impossible to predict outlandish violence. Who would ever expect to be stabbed to death in a public place full of witnesses?
In a society where there is now an alarming knife-carrying subculture, it seems you can never know when you might be risking your skin if you speak out or act to thwart unacceptable behaviour. It is not surprising then that there is a widespread reluctance to intervene when fellow citizens find themselves in trouble. Nevertheless, the ability to look the other way or turn a deaf ear can be almost as shocking as the violence itself.
Recently a friend who had lived in Shepherds Bush for 15 years moved out to a leafy suburb. One evening, about 10pm, he was walking home from the station after a few days away. About 20 yards from his front door he was suddenly attacked from behind, suffering a brutal blow to the head with a metal object. He reeled away and was quickly struck again. As he doubled over he thought: “If this guy’s got a knife I’m in real trouble here.” As the blows continued to fly in, it became clear that this mugger did not have a knife, but instead was wielding some sort of knuckle duster with which he was determined to deliver maximum violence. Remarkably, my friend did not go down under the shower of blows. He had had a few drinks and it was this, perhaps, that emboldened him to refuse to let go of his bags. The hooded man continued to beat him mercilessly. My friend recalls making a great deal of noise; primeval sounds of agony, fear and fury that shattered the peaceful night.
The mugger abruptly stopped punching. “You’re bleeding over me, you c***,” he said indignantly and jogged off leaving my friend to stagger to his front door. As he talked to the police and waited six long hours in A&E to have his head stitched up and his blackening eyes treated, he was able to reflect that while he was receiving the beating of his life, not one of his neighbours opened the front door to peek out and discover the source of the screams for help beyond the privet hedge.
The next tone you hear will be mine
Silliest new phobia of the week: “ringxiety”. This ugly word has been concocted to describe the distress felt when people hear a phone with the same ringtone as their own, scramble to answer the call and then discover that it is not their phone ringing. It is claimed that the condition affects tens of thousands of people who want to feel they are being contacted even when they are not. Sufferers can also have a false belief that they can hear the phone ringing or vibrating. I am sure therapy will soon be available for these poor souls.
I sit next to someone who has the same ringtone as me. This causes confusion but we both refuse to have anything more irritating than the straightforward “ring ring” tone. I realise I’m a misanthrope, but am I alone in feeling relieved when I find that a call is not for me?
Mob rule
The headline on the foreign pages of another newspaper earlier this week: “Sicily elects governor linked with Mafia.” Would it not have been rather curious and more newsworthy if the people of this particular island had undermined their hard-earned and long-standing international reputation by failing to elect someone with ties to the mob? damian.whitworth@thetimes.co.uk
