Sometimes, I do wonder what my Facebook ‘friends’ really think of me. Every single day, without fail, someone will share a post of someone who is wanted in respect of a sexual offence, an assault, speeding in a car or all manner of other criminal activities. I am puzzled. Am I expected to know the assailant?
It is especially odd when the alleged offence occurred some distance away. Yesterday, for example, I was alerted to an incident of a sexual nature that took place in Bridgwater. One glance confirmed I had no idea who the man was. Admittedly, the image was somewhat grainy but his identity did not immediately leap out at me. And why should it? I haven’t been to Bridgwater (twin town Chernobyl) in many years and – with all due respect to Bridgwater residents – I have no wish to visit the place anytime soon.
My guess is that people repost police items for a number of reasons, one being that they have too much time on their hands and the other that I will somehow recognise this person who is, presumably, a member of my close social circle. If I read to deeply into this, I could begin to suspect that the initial poster believes I hang out with a very dodgy circle of friends. So far as I know, none of my friends are sexual predators or go round assaulting people. I confess that one of my friends was recently caught speeding – she was driving at 35 MPH in a 30 MPH limit – but in terms of criminality it’s hardly the Yorkshire Ripper.
Worse than the actual police website items are the more random ones when someone names a vehicle, number plate and all, the driver of which was supposedly stalking young children and then countless people share it. Now call me old fashioned, but if I suspected someone was behaving strangely in an area and I suspected children might be involved, I would call 999. I certainly wouldn’t waste time putting my fears on social networks. Just yesterday, someone shared an allegation that a particular car was doing circa 90 MPH in a residential area, they had a pop at the driver, having revealed his number plate and type and colour of vehicle. They said they hadn’t reported it to the police because “they wouldn’t do anything”. Well, how do you fucking know they won’t unless you report them? If someone is killed as a result of more dodgy driving by said vehicle, I hope those who shared the information on Facebook consider their inaction.
I’d just ask people to think before sharing stuff like this, especially stuff they don’t know to be true. I’d rather see posts from people showing off about their holidays, jokes or videos of cats. Sharing an image of someone who might or might not have committed an unspecified offence wastes everyone’s time.
