All - today, around 2pm, on Waldram Crescent, I was putting out our bins for tomorrow’s collection, from our bin store, when I was verbally abused and spat at 3 times by a middle aged man who was walking along the pavement. There was no provocation for this abuse and he was extremely aggressive. I have reported to local Police, but please if anyone else has experienced a similar situation today, or indeed any other time, report it.
I am so sorry to hear this has happened, as will everyone reading this. When something like this happens you want to feel support from your community. I send you my best wishes so you know that we are a community and we do care. And you did the right thing to encourage anyone to report anything similar or related.
That’s terrible, sorry to hear that. Do you have any other details for a description?
Black male, middle aged, brown eyes, greying hair and no taller than 5ft 8. Dressed in a light coloured coat. He was heading towards Dartmouth Road/lLondon Road direction. Seemed to have mental health issues. Wanted to let people know in case his violence escalates beyond spitting and if he is known in the area. Main concern is he knows where I live as I had to go inside to get away from him and he stood outside for a period. Police incident number received and waiting feedback.
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Thanks for all the extra info. I doesn’t sound targeted as such, so hope you are not too concerned about him coming back.
All the same I can imagine that was a rather scary experience, and I am glad you have reported it. He is probably known to the local SNT. Might be worth reaching out to them for a little reassurance.
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This sounds like the person that I encountered about four weeks ago from last Sunday. I was walking from Waldron Park Road into Perry Vale. There was a guy (matches your description) on the pavement outside the ‘vape’ shop near the corner with Westbourne Drive. There was a young couple walking towards me, just passing him, and he was muttering towards them. They kept walking. As I drew level with him, he raised his voice, gesturing and spitting towards me. I decided not to engage.
I should have called the police, but how do you even do that in Forest Hill? It didn’t seem like a 999 situation. But we don’t have a local police station with a local number with police who have local knowledge. The last time I called ‘Safer Neighbourhood Team’ , the outgoing message said no-one was available and that the number is not monitored so I shouldn’t leave a message.
I once asked our GLA Rep Len Duvall if he could find out if Lewisham was getting a fair allocation of police resource compared to other Boroughs. He told me that he did ask, but that the Met declined to share data on this.
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The best person to contact, if not an emergency, is our local, and very friendly, PCSO for Perry Vale:
Dedicated Ward Police Community Support Officer (PCSO)
PCSO Andrea WOOLRYCH - 7238SE
SE BCU – Perry Vale Safer Neighbourhood Team
Catford TDP
34 Aitken Road
London
SE6 3BG
Andrea.I.Woolrych@met.police.uk
I have already written to her about this particular incident to see if she is aware of this individual, as I believe I have also seen him around for a few years now and I do believe this is a mental health issue. I am not aware of any actual incident involving him, but he certainly sounds aggressive and is usually best simply ignored, but this seems to be crossing a line.
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Thank you for doing that.
Unfortunately, with a clear lack of whatever the proper care is for lots of people with mental health issues, their sometimes aggressive verbal and behavioural gestures can feel very threatening and intimidating, especially to women and children, but it’s become part of everyday urban life and it seems to be tolerated by the authorities as long as there’s no physical violence.
But, to me, someone who goes around randomly spitting at people needs to be immediately taken off the streets and into a place where they can be looked after both for their own benefit and for public safety.
I know it’s not always straightforward because many years ago I took a young psychotic guy under my wing after I was told by his social worker that he was under threat of being sectioned because he wouldn’t take his medication. He was actually a very good and quite placid person, albeit with some made-up crazy talk and a di-stinked(!!!) aversion to washing, but I still had to meet with his care group at the Maudsley in Denmark Hill to persuade them that I would take him for his injections etc to avoid him being taken in - and I kept him on the straight and narrow for a couple of years until he carried on doing it successfully by himself.
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Same here. Happened some months ago on platform at Forest Hill station. Unfortunately staff would not do anything.