GUEST BLOG: The Woes Of NEVER Being Officially ‘Off Duty’ – Even When Travelling Home From Work

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‘I thought I’d share with you a rather entertaining story about something that happened to me.

Now before I start, allow me to clarify that yes I am a Special [Constable] (but no, I don’t continuously request vehicle checks over the air whilst on duty).

When this incident occurred, I was not on duty.

I was on a train (and yes, I did pay for a ticket) travelling home from university with a friend.

To maintain anonymity and all, lets say this train was going from Youcantbeseriousville to Areyouforreal-on-sea.

So my friend and I board the train Youcantbeseriousville and sit down, along with 20 or 30 other tired commuters.

Somehow, everyone gets a seat.

Then a man gets on holding a pop up tent and a sleeping bag.

He’s talking and swearing away to himself, sometimes aiming his words to random people on the train for “looking at [him] like at c***”

Then it gets interesting (wait for it…)

“THIS ISN’T MY TENT!” With that, the tent-weilding man throws the tent forwards and it pops up ontop of the heads of people sitting in seats near the front of the carriage.

The man then rolls the tent along the tops of chairs in the carriage, stopping halfway down.

He demanded a member of the public “sort the f***ing tent out” because, and i quote, he was a “f***ing foreign f***k”.

Now, racism and associated behaviour is something I have never and will never take lightly.

So there I am googling the number to text the British Transport Police because a phone call would clearly aggravate this gentleman when I hear screaming.

I look up and there’s Mr. Notmytent holding a man by the hair, repeatedly punching him in the face.

The man was trying to escape and fight back to no avail.

So there I am running down the train carriage shouting and pointing at people to call 999.

Out of the 7 I asked, one nodded and did, and one asked, “what, now?” At this point, I’m squeezing myself between these 2 men trying to separate them.

After a while the victim escaped the grip of the offender and began to attack him with little old me in the middle. Cheers mate.

What seemed like an eternity later the train pulls into Areyouforreal-on-sea, where I’m met by an employee of the train service.

The offender (for the purpose of this, we’ll call him Steve) asked where his bag was, so the train service employee stalled him by helping him look for it while I called police control, asked them to terminate any other related calls and stay with me until patrols arrive.

They were 20 minutes away.

Steve soon returns, having not found his bag (he never had a bag) and ranting about how that was not his tent.

There’s blood everywhere, and in the commotion, our victim has disappeared.

“WHO ARE YOU ON THE PHONE TO?” Oh, crap. “My mum, she’s picking me up” “I DON’T WANT YOU TO BE ON THE PHONE” I see this man’s hand traveling towards my face, with no time to react.

Thankfully, he didn’t punch me. But he did take my glasses off my face and throw them down onto the floor, where they smashed into pieces.

An inconvenience for anyone, but I have a specific condition that means glasses for me not only cost over £400 but take 2 months to be made.

Perfect. After this, Steve legged it.

I chased after him, all the while updating my worried “mum” what was going on.

I get out the station and he’s nowhere to be seen.

There was a man on a wall outside who looked at me and clearly knew what was happening because all he said was “he’s in that bush”.

So I talk him out of the bush and we have a lovely chat, and he apologises and tries to hug me a few times because he didn’t mean anything personal by reaching into my face and smashing my glasses.

Patrols arrived, and Steve wasn’t happy any more.

“YOU GRASS” – yep, sorry mate I’m practically employed to be a grass. It’s part of the job description.

Between the officers that arrived and myself we eventually successfully detained Steve and got him in cuffs, after a rather big scuffle involving all of us ending up on the floor.

Once all was under control, I went and gave a statement.

During this, the officer asked what had happened to my hand. There was a tiny cut but loads of blood. Long story short after finishing up with statements I popped down to the hospital following medical advice because I wasn’t convinced that the blood on me was my own, and I had a cut.

So I’m sitting in A&E setting up camp for the night, because let’s face it I’m definitely not a life threatening emergency, and then I go through to triage.

I mention that my hand is going all blotchy and swollen.

That’s when we discovered it wasn’t a cut. It was a perfectly formed human bite that had broken the skin in 4 places, with all kinds of potential diseases.

3 hours and one terrifyingly large injection later, I went home with some antibiotics.

So here we have it, a normal Wednesday commute home.

Steve was charged with assault by beating and ordered to pay £400 compensation to me (the original victim was never found).

I am expecting to receive this at a rate of £10 a month, once he has paid a similar sum to somebody else who’s property he damaged.

He also got a suspended sentence.

Let’s just put this into perspective now – while I’m sitting here for 6 months waiting for a conclusive HIV test following this incident, Steve is free to go.

While I go for all kinds of additional vaccinations and blood tests for bloodborne diseases, Steve is free to go.

While Steve told me while trying to hug me after the incident “I’d never hurt a woman”, here I am with a sore eye from where he snatched my glasses, and 6 months’ worth of worry after he bit me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to complain or for sympathy, but please – anyone: If you see anything happen that isn’t right, call it in.

And try not to get bitten.’

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