Helping a stranger.

Tonight while walking to the station talking to a friend on the phone on handsfree (headphones in) I came across a very sad situation. As I walked out of the park, I heard someone shout quickly, perfectly normal for London. Moments later 3 people on mountain bikes rode past. An instant later a young girl ran around the corner shouting and crying, pointing at the guys on the bike. The bikes were now 50 metres or so down the road.

Realising something was clearly wrong, myself and two other girls stopped the girl to find out what was going on. Call ended, headphones off and dialling 999 I asked her to explain what had happened. In quite a calm manner she briefly said they had snatched her iPhone from her hand while she had been speaking on it. She had thankfully come to no harm, but was very shaken.

While I spoke with the police and gave them details, the other two kind girls let Emma (the victim) call her family who she had been speaking to at the time of the robbery. With the police on their way, and details passed to them, I turned my attention to Emma. Sadly the girls had to rush off but left their number in case they were needed.

The police arrived pretty quickly, over shooting the first time unfortunately, but came back around very swiftly. Two superb cops from robbery came to take details, and we're very calming and comforting to Emma, who after speaking to her family was really starting to show signs of shock (understandably)

I left my details with the cops, and passed them all the info I had for them, and bid Emma farewell. As I walked to the station I did a cheeky redial of the number she had called, just to make sure whoever she had spoken to were reassured she was ok and unhurt. And that she was safely with the police now.

It's amazing how much of an impact such a brief but emotionally charged moment can have on you. It's times like this I remember why I bother to get involved, and help with situations like this, and sadly reminds me why I wanted to join the Met so badly, for so long! Helping people is such a rewarding thing. I'm just gutted I didn't see things a little quicker so I could have grabbed one of them, or done a little more.

So Emma, I hope you get over this quickly, and don't let the fear of this incident affect you. You are a brave girl coping so well. As for the cowardly little pricks that did this.... Fall in a river you wastes of space!

Regards
Michael

Sent from my BlackBerry Q10