Manchester Arena Attack: Families ‘Disgusted’ By Memorial Trespassing
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These are the introductory paragraphs,
Families of people killed in the Manchester Arena attack have said they were “disgusted” after a memorial site for the 22 victims was trespassed on.
The Glade of Light memorial in the city centre remains a building site and does not officially open until the new year.
Two bereaved families said they were appalled to find the security fences pulled down on Sunday.
The article also said this.
Ms Curry said she found hundreds of people were walking through the area, which is supposed to be closed to the public.
She said one man stood on a memorial stone and was abusive when challenged, another woman vomited all over the area, and groups of youths were openly smoking drugs.
I can’t understand what led to this aggressive trespass.
When, I am in certain cities, there does seem to be more low life on the streets than you habitually see in London.
I do wonder, if it is partly because of London’s transport regulations and actions as laid down by the Mayor and Transport for London.
London has an extensive CCTV network and after the London bombings of July the seventh and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, I’m sure it was improved.
Did the improved CCTV and the police action in the shooting the unfortunate Brazilian, deter a lot of low life from going to the centre?
Ken Livingstone or was it Boris, introduced a policy of banning alcohol on London’s transport system.
The precise details are given in this recent article on the Sun.
I have a feeling it had a positive effect, but did it mean that less drunks found their way to the centre?
In 2011, I sat next to a guy on a Manchester bus going from Piccadilly Gardens to Bury. I noticed that about a dozen youths were harassing the driver, trying to get his fare money and remarked on this to my companion.
My companion on hearing my London accent, said you don’t get that in London because of the contactless ticketing, as there is no fare money on the bus.
I was surprised at his reply and asked him to explain. It turned out he was a Trade Union Official, who looked after bus workers in Manchester. He told me his Union wanted a London-style contactless ticketing system, as it had drastically cut the number of attacks on staff in London.
Having worked with the Metropolitan Police on the analysis of data, they have also found that contactless ticketing helps in the tracing of people through London’s transport network and has solved several serious crimes.
Conclusion
I feel that terrorism and London’s reaction to it, banning of alcohol on public transport, contactless ticketing and other measures have helped keep drunks and those up to no good out of the centre.
The Anonymous Widower 
At the moment Manchester is full of people who aren’t actually from Manchester – loads of people coming in for Christmas night life Christmas Markets, and just general Christmas shopping. This Memorial isn’t labelled a Memorial yet, at least it wasn’t, because it isn’t open yet. Although what these people was wrong from a general “inappropriate behaviour even when drunk” point of view, I am am fairly sure they didnt decide to go and be sick or to urinate on the Memorial to the victims of the Arena Attack. There are a lot of people from overseas selling at the Christmas Markets – they may not know very much about the attack in the first place.
The only people likely to want to disrespect the Memorial are people who are fed up to the back teeth that local media is full of details about it on a daily basis because the Inquest is happening at the moment, and 22 inquests take a long long time.
I do agree with banning alcohol on all public transport, and Oyster Card type systems etc. But I think this incidenct has a lot to do with the fact that people come to Manchester specifically to have “clubbing weekends”, and also shopping and the Christmas Markets. There is so much alcohol sold at the markets that you can actually smell it. Gluhwein is sold throughout the markets, many stalls selling it, and the Market covers large areas of the city. A lot of the stuff on sake is overpriced tat.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | December 7, 2021 |