Just read through most of the replies to Halicons email. Feel I should have a bit of a say now. I am sorry if this thread has upset people in any way who have ever had any sort of serious crime committed against them, I for one am not claiming in any way that this was a serious crime. Also I did not ask for this post to be written on my behalf but if it is making people more street aware then I am glad it has been. It is so easy to develop a false sense of security when you know an area so well and all this thread is asking you to do is to remember to look over your shoulder now and again and perhaps trust your judgements. This thread is certainly not about race, it is about providing a description of a man who very clearly frightened me on friday evening. I dont know why some of you think that it was only a come on, it wasn't, this man was following me from a point past Sainsburys and when I took a different route to the one he took , he very obviously noticed and doubled back to find me. I hope that most of you men who are on this thread ,do not chase a woman down the street without making any noise ( carrying the suitcase so it can't be heard) and then continiously ask her why she feels frightened and then side stepping her every move repeating ' Im not trying to frighten you, Ive left my bag over there so you are not scared, I just want you to come over and talk to me, why are you moving away I have nothing to harm you, why are you frightened, you look scared.....I just want to talk about your boots...'. Now I am not someone who gets frightened easily, but I was. I had put myself in a very vulnerable position and he was definetly playing on this vulnerability. Part of me wanted to say f... off, you are a 6 foot middle build male who has just chased after me down a quiet side street and is continiously trying to chat and side step my every move, that is why I am frightened, instead I told him I wasnt frightened, thanks for the chat and to go back and get his belongings before someone steals it and that I could see my sister coming down the road as we spoke, at which point the guy backed off. I dont know if this guy meant any intentional harm,I don't know if he just has a boot fettish, I don't know if he has mental health problems, I don't know if he thinks this is an acceptable form of chatting a lady up or a don't know if this is one more small step into carrying out a more serious crime, what I do know that he invaded my personal space and continued to do so whilst visably seeing how anxious I was, yet he was not put off by my anxiety in anyway, that to me ( in my definition) is not normal behaviour. The incident is over now and a positive thing that has come out of this thread is that it has generated alot of discussion about womans saftey, as sometimes we take it for granted. Thanks for reading this.
