Should I Report This Bully To The Police?

[Expat1]

I love in Scotland and feel I have just been subjected to threatening behaviour.

A little background :-

I live in a "quiet" street and although I have a driveway there is not enough space for both my wife's and my car so O tend to park on the road. The people across the road also have two cars but more space. On Saturday I was out with my wife in my car. When we returned we found the car belonging to the son from across the road parked outside our house (despite there being no reason for not parking outside his own house) in such a way that I had to park with my car blocking our drive. This is not the problem. Tonight I pulled up and was subjected to a tirade from the boys farther for parking too close to his sons car. I hasten to add that although I was close I did not touch the other car. His exact words were "if you'd hit my boys car you'd f****** know about it" the guy is slightly taller than me and somewhat "larger" when I pointed out that I hadn't hit his son's car his answer was to repeat the above threat and state "you don't own this f****** street".

His son has in he past been reported to the police for threatening my eldest son while he was on his way home from school and (with a group of his pals) trying to force him off the pavement in the path of a passing vehicle. I am not intimidated by this thug but I am worried for my family as I have to work away from home a lot.

Sorry to have rambled on but any advice would be very much appreciated.

Regards

JH.

[Expat1]

Hi Joko.

Thank you for your input.

Nope I did not block him in there was nothing behind him at all. We share the section of drop kerb with our across the drive neighbours but there is a 2.5 foot difference in drive heights between the two properties which actually makes access to both drives awkward. I pulled my car as far forward as possible so as to give my neighbour as much room as possible to pull onto his drive. He sometimes has to cross my half of the dropped kerb in order to get enough of an angle to get on his drive.

I am we'll aware of the law with respect to parking but just a small point is that there was plenty of room outside his own house he did not have to park where he did or even as far forward. As for not threatening me I think you'll find that he did. As stated previously he is taller and much "larger" than me and to come out shouting the odds and effectively telling me where I can park and how I "would know about it" while raising his fist can be construed as threatening under any interpretation.

Cheers

JH

[joko]

no, he didnt 'have to' park where he did - but that is irrelevant - he did park there ... and he was entitled to.

for all you know someone else may have been parked outside his house when he arrived home, who had since left, so he parked where there was a gap...?

it sounds like you have tried to squash your car as close up to his as possible without hitting it, just to annoy him in the hope he wont park there again.

you cannot say that you had no choice, as presumably there is a whole street there that you could have parked in.

as i say you have no more rights than him to that space, and doing what you did would seem to have caused a problem.

when i say 'threat', i mean he did not say he was going to hit you or anything, he said IF you had hit his car, you'd know about it - it is agressive behaviour i agree, but not strictly a physical threat, more warning you to be careful and not to play stupid parking games with him again.
his size is irrelevant.

he could argue that saying 'you'd know about it' meant he would call the police or sue you ... point is you cant really say its a physical threat.
(for what its worth, he probably does mean he will hit you, but thats not the point, he will argue otherwise)

as i say, your best bet is to let it go until he does something definite.

[Expat1]

Hi Joko.

I did not "Squash" my car up close to his sons to anoy him but as I described in order to allow my neighbour to have easier access to his drive. Yes I could have parked elsewhere but as there was no space other than outside this persons house available in the street without blocking someone's access and I had boot full of heavy items I parked where I did. Yes he has the same entitlement as me to park where he likes (as long as it is legally allowed) but by the same token he has no right to tell me I can't park where I did. Yes two wrongs don't make a right but I haven't actually done anything wrong, just parked in an available space while trying to be considerate to my neighbours.

I do understand what you are saying and exactly what you mean but this is just another incident. I've not bothered with any of them before (with the exception of the incident involving his son and my eldest) just kept myself to myself.

I really do appreciate you taking the time to post and can see exactly what you are saying but unfortunately the written word (especially with limited word count) does not portray the full situation. In hindsight it may have been prudent to park further back and appologise to my neighbour if he had difficulty in accessing his drive but that does not alter the fact that I did not do any harm to anyone or damage to anyone's property. I did not deserve a tirade from a fist waving bully.

I have looked up the law (Scotish) in respect of threatening behaviour and it turns out that a threat of actual physical violence does not have to be made verbally. The behaviour only has to make the subject feel in fear of harm. So raising his fist while saying "you'd know about it" seems to fulfill that.

I have almost certainly decided to ignore the threat and ignore him aswell. Life is too short to allow people to get to you. His sort tend not to phase me that much.

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond. It is very much appreciated and has allowed me to vent a bit as well.

Many thanks and I hope you all have a pleasant and prosperous new year.

Cheers

JH

[joko]

oh, i agree you havent done anything wrong, you are entitled to park where you did - but in his eyes it was an awkward thing to do and you did it for spite, to be annoying etc - and thats the problem - he obviously took it as a dig and thats why he got so het up.

so you do right by just avoiding him... it may seem that everything you do will come across as a sly dig, so at least for now, just steer clear... as you say, life is too short to get into stuff like this

[EdgeofDarkness]

Expat, I lived and worked in Scotland for 16 years. It sounds as if you might be English. Certainly you say that you aren't a local Scot. My experience of parts of Lowland Scotland (including Central Belt) is that there is quite a lot of racism. One of the Lowland Scottish tendencies is that the final sanction in any argument is violence, But, never mind that you're not as tall as them shortass gits, if you stand up to them, and really mean it, and they can see that, they'll back down. They always did with me anyway. Good luck pal.

[Wharton]

Another Lowland Scottish tendency is to ignore bampots, but not everyone is good at it :-)

[Expat1]

Once again thanks for the responses everyone.

I've been living up here for almost 20 years now and the majority of people are fine and friendly it's just one or two that feel English means fair game :0).

I was born and brought up in South Manchester and anyone that can walk through Moss Side in a scout leaders uniform at night (which I did on a weekly basis) doesn't scare easily.

Things have seemed to settle down and I've had nothing further to do with this guy. Which suits me. I have enough good friends round here that accept me despite my Englishness :0). So I'll just carry on with my life whether he likes it or not.


Cheers everyone.

JH

[EdgeofDarkness]

Expat1, my other reply seems to have disappeared but I hope you were able to get a look at it. Someone probably thought that it was anti-scottish. It wasn't, I was just pointing out some blunt truths. The first thing is that never mind all your family connections to Scotland, if you weren't yourself born in Scotland and especially if you talk in an English accent, you're fair game to parochial, bigoted, racist types. The second thing is, I don't think you have a thick enough skin to take it, otherwise you wouldn't be coming on here. My advice in the long term is to move back amongst people like yourself, and leave the ignorant to it.

[EdgeofDarkness]

Now I see the other reply above. Old age...