A man was verbally attacked and intimidated in Formby Village

Mar 8, 20173 min read

A man was verbally attacked and intimidated in the heart of our village whilst on a short walk to the cash machine. The incident has left him and his family shocked and angry at the state of our streets after living here most of their lives and never experiencing vulgarity on this scale from our young adult society.

Here is the account of what happened in a family members own words....

"Last Tuesday (28th Feb) at approx. 9:15pm, my Dad was verbally assaulted and aggressively challenged at the corner of Rosemary Lane/Brows Lane leading into Chapel Lane." "It's an incident that, while not physical, has left my Dad pretty shaken (although, in honesty, I think I'm more enraged about it). The perpetrators who opposed my Dad were, in his words, "not kids...not even youths - they were probably what we class as 'young adults'...18-21ish". My sister had been visiting and was leaving to catch an overnight train to Edinburgh; my Dad wanted to send some money for his Grandkids and decided to take the short walk to the 'hole-in-the-wall' at Nat-West. It's literally 10 mins walk from his house on Freshfield Rd." "As he approached the top of Rosemary Lane, he heard a female shouting "Oi....Oi you!". He could only see shadowy figures over at the area leading to reception at Formby pool. He ignored the shouts and continued to walk on when a male voice aggressively shouted over "Oi...you in the hat; you f***ing k***head".

"My Dad carried on walking despite being more than taken aback by these shouts. The male voice started again - "Ay d***head, you go to that machine and I'm taking your f***ing money off you. You listening you f***ing old t**t?".

"The female voice restarted shouting "Don't just ignore us, you. We only f***ing wanted to say hello. F***ing b*****d" while walking opposite him on the side of the street where the Post Office is, up until the PO. The male was closely behind her at a slight distance." "He abandoned the plan of taking any money out and quickly headed past Flames and toward Prezzo where he'd hoped there would be some civilised people in case this went further. It didn't. They never went further than the Post Office. My Dad assumes they retreated to the unlit reception area of the pool."

"My Dad ended up walking completely out of the way in order to get home and what was a simple trip to withdraw some money for his Grandchildren ended up taking nearly an hour before he got back home." "I just want to highlight this to residents of Formby. People might think that this is a nothing situation, but I'm sorry to say that it isn't a nothing situation. Worse things do happen, I agree, but this shouldn't happen! How dare whoever these 'people' are think it's okay to verbally attack someone for minding their own business and walking through the village. What right do they have to shout this at anybody? Threatening to take someone's money is so incredibly low. I'm beyond enraged that people deem this an acceptable form of behaviour. What right do they think they have?"

"We've lived in Formby my entire life and no member of my family have ever had any problem like this. We lost my Mum to illness 8 years ago but before that, my Dad retired early to take care of her fulltime. He has a vulnerability about him these days as my Mum's situation changed him a lot. He isn't medically wrong, but as proven in this instance, he is vulnerable to this behaviour. He is the nicest man anyone could meet (even taking my bias aside), does nothing but good, has never said an ill word as long as I've known him and routinely goes out of his way to help those in the community. Challenging these people would have been the furthest thing from my Dad's mind. I wish he'd be a bit more like Clint Eastwood's character in the film Gran Torino, but it just isn't him. Additionally, I agree with him - why should he change who he is to cope with such disgusting behaviour?" "This is deplorable behaviour from anyone, but I don't know what is happening to Formby. I've moved to Manchester/London for work purposes, and even though I regularly come back, at times I hardly recognise the place. This would never have happened once. As I'm certain others are, I'm dismayed at the turn Formby has taken. When someone can't even walk to a cash machine at 9:15pm on a Tuesday evening without being verbally challenged and threatened in the street is a horrendous turn in social climate." "Please be vigilant when out at night in Formby. These streets just aren't safe anymore."