Does not pose a risk
An elderly man spotted wearing a girl’s school uniform near a Leigh secondary school and on a bus “does not pose a risk”, according to police who have urged the public to stop sharing photos of him.
Social media has been flooded with reports of the man wearing Belfairs Academy uniform in the vicinity of the Highlands Boulevard school this week, as well as on a bus in the area while children travelled home.
Photos have also been posted online of the man wearing a Milton Hall Primary School uniform.
Photos not of this man wearing girls’ school uniforms at home, mind you, but wearing them in public while loitering near the schools and riding the bus the girls take.
How can the police know the man poses no risk?
Essex Police has identified the individual and officers from its community policing team have discussed the incident with the man in question. The force says it understands the community’s concerns, but the man is not a risk to the public.
But the force can’t know that. It can think it has good reasons to think he is not a risk, but it can’t just know he isn’t full stop. It can’t know that, and the behavior in question sounds quite strikingly diagnostic of “this man is a risk to these girls.” Why is he not dressing up in boys’ school uniforms, just for a start?
Police have also urged residents to stop sharing photographs of the individual on social media. Posts shared on Facebook identifying the man have attracted hundreds of comments and shares.
The police not only think and say they know what they can’t know, they’re also ordering people to stop taking precautions against this man loitering around schoolgirls in schoolgirls’ uniforms.
Bosses at Essex Police have reiterated that no crimes had been committed and that the force has the situation under control.
School uniform supplier Paul’s School and Workwear in Southchurch Road says it has received multiple emails and calls regarding the individual. In a post on Facebook, a spokesman for the business said it had not sold him the Belfairs uniform but added: “He was in store this week purchasing a grey box pleat skirt that he said was for his granddaughter, he is now banned from the shop.”
Oh but why is he banned from the shop? The police assure us he poses no threat. Perhaps his granddaughter would like more box pleat skirts.
I really don’t understand the reasoning. How can it be simultaneously harmful cultural appropriation, which will cause unbearable distress to grown men, to wear the outfits of a culturally subordinate and powerless group in another country, AND totally harmless when the wearer is a grown man and the group is girl children on the same bus?
I suspect that they may have neglected to add some pertinent information to their statement.
“Does not pose a risk” is not the same as “is doing no harm.” If those girls feel uncomfortable or threatened then harm is occurring. Maybe he’s not going to murder or assault anyone, but just sitting on the bus, or staring, ogling, leering, etc. are still going to be upsetting to the girls he is clearly targeting. It’s not just a “risk”, it’s already happening. If this man does not know that he is causing discomfort or distress*, or does not care, then the police need to give him a bit more of a talking to. Maybe as severe as those administered to men posting limericks, or women being untoward towards pedophiles, or other supposed “non-crime hate incidents.” Seems this creepy old guy is more of a risk than people posting mean things on the internet.
* Note that this “discomfort and distress” is considerably different than that whipped up over showing images of a dead prophet produced centuries ago by the dead prophet’s co-religionists. An image can’t enjoy or become aroused at the discomfort (which is the likely point of it), or escalate behaviour to the point of physical danger.
Exactly. Partly, because girls. Partly because trans. The umbrella covers a lot of territory and hides a multitude of sins. Women are perfectly legitimate
targetssources for appropriation. Denying this would invalidate TiMs and interfere with their “gender expression.”I dunno, if he’s not doing anything illegal I wouldn’t expect coppers to do anything beyond a “I’ve got my eyes on you” gesture. Obviously that hasn’t stopped UK peace officers from engaging in extralegal actions against legal conduct…
BKiSA, I’m not sure how it works in the UK, but here in my town, they made a city law against a man being at the public swimming pool by himself. It was to protect the girls, sure, but…let’s just say, the city found they were unable to enforce it. Law got thrown out.
It would have been better, and more within the bounds of the constitution (both state and federal) to simply make a time where only the girls were allowed, so any girls who wanted to swim alone without worry of predators could do so. Of course, then the men would have put on girl’s swimsuits and come anyway.
The police, in theory, are supposed to do a risk assessment. Their criteria would be about his likelihood to commit a crime, not his chances of being a massive perv and understandably frightening a lot of young girls. This is incorrect, the police have a role to intervene in obviously dodgy behaviour as well as to uphold the letter of the law, even though they (rightly) don’t have any power to do it. We don’t want police officers throwing around their weight to move homeless people on when they’re doing no harm, for example, but I’d like to think we do want them telling adult males dressed as schoolgirls not to hang around schools.
It’s a fine line, of course. At the Standing For Women event last week, I – a disabled man in a wheelchair – and my friend – a five foot two woman clutching a dog the size of a guinea pig – were filmed extensively by police while 200 people just behind them were screaming all-too credible threats at us. I was wearing an LGBA hoodie, which annoyed them quite a lot, and it’s safe to say there was quite a lot of hate shrieking concerning my disability. I didn’t want or expect the police to do anything about that, but it’s interesting that they chose the two people who posed the least possible threat to obsessively film. They followed us around for a good 20 minutes. That’s 20 minutes of us telling them to fuck off, admittedly, but we posed absolutely zero threat compared to the 200 men in masks.
There’s definitely a rabbit away here. If I parked my wheelchair outside a school at hometime every day, the police would definitely (and rightly) have a word with me, even though there’s no way I could possibly pose a credible direct threat to the children. They would suspect me of grooming and would have every reason to say “come on mate, off you fuck”.
But they’re telling us that if I did exactly the same thing wearing a pleated skirt, they’d defend my right to be there and protect me from any parents who thought I might be up to no good. There is no law in the UK that prevents people from taking or posting photographs, but the police are ordering us not to do that where this particular person is concerned. I understand that he might be targeted for violence because of it, and I wouldn’t want that, but let’s be clear about this: he shouldn’t be fucking hanging around schools dressed as a schoolgirl.
When I went to a TERFy event in an LGBA hoodie, I knew exactly what I was asking for and I have no complaints about the abuse I got because of it. Nobody should be abused because of their shirt, but I won’t pretend I wasn’t being deliberately provocative. You’d think the same would hold for the nonce in a girls’ school uniform, outside schools.