Neighbourhood kids swearing and behavior annoying us

We are having the same problem – I think it’s because kids know they are untouchable and their parents will back them regardless.

Currently the kids on our really lovely little estate have a little game going on. They have taken to barricading or blocking roads with bins or bikes and hiding - throwing stones, mud or rubbish when unsuspecting people get out of their cars to move the bikes – then leg it screaming insults and obscenities.

When one guy recognised one of the gang and went to speak (quite civilly) to its mother the kids on mass accused the dude of assaulting one of the lads. Police were involved, as the mother was rabidly pushing the poor guy be charged. He was really worried he was going to end up in real trouble, lose your job kind of trouble.

Luckily for him he had a dash cam – though the mother is still yelling all over facebook that her precious baby wouldn’t lie and the man had no right to accuse him. Now all the kids are throwing poop at his door and his car has been damaged on a number of occasions.

This is where things have changed – my mother would have killed me stone dead if I brought someone to our door.

Tygermoth wrote: »

We are having the same problem . . . the kids en masse accused the dude of assaulting one of the lads. Police were involved, as the mother was rabidly pushing the poor guy be charged. He was really worried he was going to end up in real trouble, lose your job kind of trouble.

My late mother-in-law was so well-regarded by people in her area that they had to open the balcony in the parish church to accommodate everyone that turned up for her funeral, and a lot of them were young parents with their children . . . BUT only a few short years earlier, when she was about eighty years old, she had been informally warned by the local police officer NOT to offer the conkers she had picked up in the park to children passing her house. (The parents really had called the police).

Keep a good six foot back from other people's children nowadays and never, ever be in a situation where you are alone with a young person under eighteen . . .

Guest101 wrote: »

You realise the police had no legal authority to request her to cooperate? and that there is no law regarding contact with children in such a manner?

I would rather be safe than sorry, all the same!

Hedgehog99 wrote: »

The police take swearing seriously when it's used against them, so they should when a member of the public is suffering it.

I feel very sorry for you, being treated this way. The police and council should take your and your neighbours' complaints seriously.

Hope you can get this sorted, especially with the school hols coming up.

The most revolting thing anyone has ever said to me was said by a feral kid on his bike - can only have been seven at the most. Why are these kids allowed to think they can behave like that to adults minding their own business?

Not anymore they can't. There was a judgement from the courts in which the judge giving their ruling basically said a police officer who feels alarm/distress at being swore at was unfit for duty given what their job entails. While the courts have come up with some weird & wonderful judgements in their time, I can't say I disagree with the logic in that one.

Courts are less likely to apply that part of the public order act to children though - the law is remarkably lenient on kids just because they're under 18.