Jackie Danicki

It has been one week since I was assaulted.

Yesterday, I received a letter from British Transport Police, telling me that:

[my] details have now been forwarded to [my] local area Crime Management Unit who will be conducting investigations. There are circumstances where results are not always achievable, however we will keep you updated of our progress.

I hate management-speak, so it’s not surprising that the language of this letter was very off-putting to me. So the police are to the point where they’re trying to “manage” crime, rather than eradicate it? Interesting.

Also enclosed was a leaflet on “Victim Support”. The conclusion of the letter:

If we can help you further, or if you think of anything, no matter how trivial, that may be of assistance, please contact [us]…

Do you think the photo I took of one of my attackers - the one I told them about seven days ago, and no mention of which was made in this letter - might qualify? They still haven’t attempted to get it from me.

It’s also really silly, in the circumstances, for them to have wasted resources sending me a letter. They have my email address. I could easily send them the photo - or a link to it in various sizes - if they’d share their address with me.

This morning, I also received a voicemail from an actual police officer. He sounds like a competent person - strange as that may sound - so I am hopeful. He said in his message that they do have the CCTV footage of my assault, which is a huge relief to me. He needs to talk to me about whether the attack was racially motivated or not, which…

I’m not even going to go there. I’ve received some sickeningly racist comments about my attack, many which I have not allowed to be published; this is my private property, and there are limits to the amount of rubbish I will allow people to spout here. If you hate black people and think that a person’s blackness is reason enough to suspect them of being a criminal, you are free to hold such views. What you are not free to do is have them published here. If you bother to waste your time submitting a hateful comment here, then you’re not only racist but an idiot, too. Please, don’t be tempted to prove me right by trying to submit a stupid comment to this post.

Anyway, I have now tried seven times to call the detective back on the phone number he gave me, and it just rings and rings and rings - no voicemail service in the British Transport Police, I guess. I really hope I can get hold of him before the weekend.

Filed under: Law, Life, Survival, The State Is Not Your Friend