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'Big man' vs Sam Main incident (final decision: no charges for either)

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furo1

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MMmmm now that IS useful to know, there are one or two circumstances in which I would have liked to have availed of that Law. Please do tell more !

Most of our existing laws are still based upon historical law. Murder for example, having been made illegal some many hundreds of years ago. Age of a Law does not suddenly negate its applicability or relevance, and indeed recent Law is of such poor quality as to be constantly under Appeal in many cases. Change for change sake is hardly a prescription for managing anything that works let alone the Law

No-one imposed themselves upon the person. The passenger asked the Guard of he wished the person removed from the train, presumably taking the age of the Guard into account. The fact that he is a Guard does not necessary mean he was endowed with the ability to physically remove the person from the train. What if it had been a lady Guard ?

The Railway Byelaws are quite clear in authorising a person to be removed from a train (or other Railway premises) using whatever force is considered necessary. The person made an attempt to rejoin the train and was prevented from doing so, again this is legal.

With respect you are hardly in any position to say that the situation was handled properly or improperly. You can have your opinion but that is all it can ever be. Had you been able to demonstrate some experience in dealing with such situations then maybe your opinion may hold a greater weight, unfortunately you do not have the experience to fall back on, neither do you seemingly have all the facts relating to the lead up to this.

Because of this I find it quite ironic that you seek to do the very thing that you have professed a dislike of.

There is no "supposed crime". The person concerned was in breach of the Railway byelaws and Conditions of Carriage. Had he been a little more astute or even had the intelligence he claims to be endowed with if he is attending University, then he would have been far better in managing his dealings with the Guard. I have little doubt that had he explained the circumstances around him buying the tickets in the first place, that the Guard may well have been disposed to let him travel on. As with all things in life attitude and approach have a very high bearing upon how a Guard/Conductor/TM will treat you. Very few of them go to work looking for unnecessary trouble and conflict.

On the contrary it has rather a lot to do with the issue.

You have entered onto a Forum that has many Railway staff on it, who have done many years service in such situations and many indeed still work in such roles.

You have then proceeded to (and continue to) state very firmly that the Guard was wrong, did not handle the situation very well, etc, etc.

Now in a lifetime of Railway work I have been involved in a number of similar situations, although most of my colleagues on here have substantially more experience in these matters than I do. What I have learnt both through the job, and in passing through life, is that there are two sides to every story, and that selective and incomplete filmed footage or indeed photograph, can actually convey a completely inaccurate image of an event.

I have not really taken part in the discussions here mostly because at this time the full facts are not necessarily known. The one thing I would NOT do is to raise any criticism of the Guard unless I really had good reason to do so, and that this criticism would be based upon my own experience in being involved with such situations. I have not criticised the Guard.

With great respect to yourself, you do not have this experience and therefore your opinion is speculative at best, and offensive at worst, not only to the Guard concerned but also to my on-train colleagues.

Now opinions may change in the fullness of time of course but at this stage no-one who has experience in dealing with these situations is saying much, and I think that the shrewd readers here will understand why this is the case.

From my own perspective I do HAVE a view but that is a private opinion that I would wish to validate in due course. As to the removal of the person concerned this would certainly appear to have been an appropriate course of action given the facts that are clear so far.

Great post, thanks!

You're right, I don't have experience in this rather specific situation.

I do of course have different experience in dealing with volatile situations, involving the most desperate of people, in the most direst of circumstances. I know that when you're dealing with a conflict involving a non-violent individual, you never add violence as a means to resolving it. I know that if I was involved in a situation that it was my job to resolve professionally, I would never involve a member of the public. I would involve my colleagues and the police.

I don't know the railway procedures and protocols but I very much doubt there is legal grounds for the use of physical force, unless it is for defensive purposes. I very much doubt that it is acceptable to involve a member of the public, in fact, to authorise violence, by one member of the public on another.

So, you tell me. When a person in breach of the Railway byelaws and Conditions of Carriage, refuses to leave but is not physically aggressive, is it the conductors responsibility to forcibly eject them, or is it the responsibility of the transport police?
 
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Nym

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Tell me, when you're dealing with patients in your rehab centre, are you ever on your own or more than an hour from the nearest police assistance with 200+ members of the general public ready to lynch you if you make them wait for said police to turn up?
 

OMGitsDAVE

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I don't see why people are being so bias...

The man was travelling without a valid ticket, and failed to show one after ample opportunity. According to reports, the filming of this only took place minutes in to the incident, after the Ticket Inspector had asked numerous times.

After failing to show the ticket, the Guard went on to stop the train, and refused to carry on until he either paid or left the service, which obviously by the time filming had commenced, seemed the better and only option.

Sam replied with inexcusable words, especially infront of Children... and it seemed as though a number of the passengers began to get frustrated. When one offers to help, do you really expect the guard to stand there and go 'No its okay, ill sort it', or to appreciate the help - and expect the service to carry on without any more trouble? Im sure the Guard didn't expect him to be literally picked up with force, but that's how it went.

The guard simply wanted someone off the train, and the passenger who handled him (and those who congratulated him) obviously did too... I'd rather have someone off the train than stand and argue for hours.

He had ample time to show a ticket, but didn't - the Guard won't have stopped the train as soon as Sam gave him the wrong ticket - it must have been well in to the process.
 

ANorthernGuard

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Great post, thanks!

You're right, I don't have experience in this rather specific situation.

I do of course have different experience in dealing with volatile situations, involving the most desperate of people, in the most direst of circumstances. I know that when you're dealing with a conflict involving a non-violent individual, you never add violence as a means to resolving it. I know that if I was involved in a situation that it was my job to resolve professionally, I would never involve a member of the public. I would involve my colleagues and the police.

I don't know the railway procedures and protocols but I very much doubt there is legal grounds for the use of physical force, unless it is for defensive purposes. I very much doubt that it is acceptable to involve a member of the public, in fact, to authorise violence, by one member of the public on another.

So, you tell me. When a person in breach of the Railway byelaws and Conditions of Carriage, refuses to leave but is not physically aggressive, is it the conductors responsibility to forcibly eject them, or is it the responsibility of the transport police?

As I have said to a few people over the years when they say say either The Guard was too heavy handed or he wasn't fair or why did the guard ask a passenger to help, try working a train on a Fri/Sat Night no matter what part of the country you are in and come back to me after a couple of months and repeat what you have said today, the odds are that you will see things a whole lot differently!

He was disgustedly rude, Threatening in his manner, had no regard for anyone apart from himself and he got what he deserved...Ooops and he DID NOT HAVE A VALID TICKET!!!
 

jon0844

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Living on the forum? From a person with over 6000 posts who has responded to every one of my posts, that's some strange condemnation.

That's over a considerable time though, and I am on holiday today and felt compelled to correct your somewhat weird and skewed outlook on the content of the video, and total ignorance about what has been said since that confirms he was drunk.

What's more, how did Big Man know how big or small he was when he decided to step up and assist the guard? You seem to suggest that his size is in some way the deciding factor on whether it was assault or not.
 

furo1

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Tell me, when you're dealing with patients in your rehab centre, are you ever on your own or more than an hour from the nearest police assistance with 200+ members of the general public ready to lynch you if you make them wait for said police to turn up?

No, of course not. We are in almost constant contact with the police as I am sure you can understand. We work in a secure environment with "panic buttons" dotted all over which ensure that if a situation gets beyond our control, we can quickly get professional assistance. But this is because we often deal with desperate, irrational and dangerous people, not sweary children who haven't paid there train fare.
 

ANorthernGuard

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No, of course not. We are in almost constant contact with the police as I am sure you can understand. We work in a secure environment with "panic buttons" dotted all over which ensure that if a situation gets beyond our control, we can quickly get professional assistance. But this is because we often deal with desperate, irrational and dangerous people, not sweary children who haven't paid there train fare.

so you work in a relatively safe environment with help at a moments notice..ok then so you have absolutely no idea about how things work when you are the only person around to deal with "sweary Children"


*sigh
 

jon0844

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We work in a secure environment with "panic buttons" dotted all over which ensure that if a situation gets beyond our control, we can quickly get professional assistance. But this is because we often deal with desperate, irrational and dangerous people, not sweary children who haven't paid there train fare.

Desperate, irrational and dangerous people exist in the outside world too.. a lot of those that you're dealing with were quite likely like that in the wild.

The guard on the train doesn't have panic buttons lined along the train, or assistance that could be just minutes away.

Jesus, given what you say you do for a living, I am even more shocked that you're just putting Mr Main down as little more than a 'sweary child'. You, more than anyone else, must know that he had the potential to do a lot more. Or, do you think that you can always predict things based on experience? If so, why do you have the panic alarms?
 

Old Timer

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I know that when you're dealing with a conflict involving a non-violent individual, you never add violence as a means to resolving it. I know that if I was involved in a situation that it was my job to resolve professionally, I would never involve a member of the public. I would involve my colleagues and the police.

I don't know the railway procedures and protocols but I very much doubt there is legal grounds for the use of physical force, unless it is for defensive purposes. I very much doubt that it is acceptable to involve a member of the public, in fact, to authorise violence, by one member of the public on another.

So, you tell me. When a person in breach of the Railway byelaws and Conditions of Carriage, refuses to leave but is not physically aggressive, is it the conductors responsibility to forcibly eject them, or is it the responsibility of the transport police?
We are of course talking about a completely different situation, one where there are other people involved at the periphery.

That said I am slightly surprised at your comment that the pereson concerend was "non-violent". He displayed aggressive behaviour, which given what is said and when and how it is said, is construed to be violent behaviour and which can indeed constitute an assault, even though not a hand has been lifted.

With regards to the legality of his removal, the person concerned broke a variety of Railway Byelaws and Conditions if Carriage. Under these the Guard or other railway person is entitled to remove a person from the train and/or from Railway premises. The 1840 Act allows for any Railway person in the discharge of their duties to call upon another person to assist them.
 

Nym

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No, of course not. We are in almost constant contact with the police as I am sure you can understand. We work in a secure environment with "panic buttons" dotted all over which ensure that if a situation gets beyond our control, we can quickly get professional assistance. But this is because we often deal with desperate, irrational and dangerous people, not sweary children who haven't paid there train fare.

So you deal with the same kinds of people I have delt with on many occations, that my ex partner had delt with on even more occations, and in a much more controlled enviroment than either myself or my partner delt with these people, also to take into account, you know the're potentially violent, when you're in a secure nusing home 35mins from the nearest police station and theres only two of you on duty, or dealing with a close quaters riot control situation
Or walking down a sandy dirt track in Afganistan in a valley where you know one, just one person that you're walking past all friendly dismounted with only your L85 to look after you will either have a load of TNT strapped to him. Alternatively an AKS-74u under his jacket and either way a big grudge against you and your mates. And also thanks to operational rules, he can quite easilly penitrate the centre of your patrol between your IC and TAC and then quite happily spray 30 rounds of soviet ammo all over your CO and then quite happily blow himself up. Oh, no, you work in a secure home with police and backup moments away, so again, I ask, and we're all thinking.
"What gives you the god given right to comment on the actions of the conductor?"
 
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furo1

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so you work in a relatively safe environment with help at a moments notice..ok then so you have absolutely no idea about how things work when you are the only person around to deal with "sweary Children"


*sigh

Yeah, when I have a used syringe jabbed into my neck, the police will be there in under ten minutes too assist, so I guess it is a pretty safe work environment! God forbid I should have to deal with a swearing child who hadn't paid his train fare.

*sigh
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
So you deal with the same kinds of people I have delt with on many occations, that my ex partner had delt with on even more occations, and in a much more controlled enviroment than either myself or my partner delt with these people, also to take into account, you know the're potentially violent, when you're in a secure nusing home 35mins from the nearest police station and theres only two of you on duty, or dealing with a close quaters riot control situation, or walking down a sandy dirt track in Afganistan in a valley where you know one, just one person that you're walking past all friendly dismounted with only your L85 to look after you will either have a load of TNT strapped to him, or an AKS-74u under his jacket and a big grudge against you and your mates, and thanks to operational rules, he can quite easilly penitrate the centre of your patrol between your IC and TAC and then quite happily spray 30 rounds of soviet ammo all over your CO and then quite happily blow himself up. Oh, no, you work in a secure home with police and backup moments away, so again, I ask, and we're all thinking.
"What gives you the god given right to comment on the actions of the conductor?"

I am not sure whether you are being serious or not. I hope not because you sound insane.

I couldn't pull a point from the above but just remember, he was a sweary child.
 

ANorthernGuard

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Yeah, when I have a used syringe jabbed into my neck, the police will be there in under ten minutes too assist, so I guess it is a pretty safe work environment! God forbid I should have to deal with a swearing child who hadn't paid his train fare.

*sigh

hmmm lets see..been threatened with a syringe before, not nice but NO PANIC BUTTON, just common sense, I can't figure out if you are a troll, completely living in your own bubble or haven't even seen the full vid as obviously you really do not have a clue, as quite a few have pointed out!

glad you got emergency help, how long did that take? 5-10 minutes?? say stuck on 25 year old train in the middle of somewhere like the middle of the peak district or Cumbria how long then????
 
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Nym

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Yeah, when I have a used syringe jabbed into my neck, the police will be there in under ten minutes too assist, so I guess it is a pretty safe work environment! God forbid I should have to deal with a swearing child who hadn't paid his train fare.

*sigh

You must not be very good at your job if someone can get into the position to be able to jam anything sharp into you...

Like I said, you know the're potentially violent, and if you're trained properly and actually do your job properly you can mitigate that risk.

Might I also mention, that if you work in any kind of secure unit with the kind of violent people I beleive you may be talking about, that you shouldn't be mentioning this on a public forum, since you are putting yourself at risk of being targeted by terrorists and orginised criminals.

I am not sure whether you are being serious or not. I hope not because you sound insane.

I couldn't pull a point from the above but just remember, he was a sweary child.

OK, you can't see a point in that so you're just blatantly thick, or have had no training at all in handling violent persons of any kind of quality, and if the latter is the case, then I should ask for a refund on training from your employer, or look for a new job.

And as a PS to any forum members here not aware of my history, not for the benifit of furo, but for the benifit of others, I have worked in secure units, I have worked in EMI units, and I have also been a servant to the queen in the kind of uniform you can see on the left, and no, I was not making c*** up about sandy places.
 

amcluesent

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Rather than hold up the train and have a barny, maybe guards/RPI should just take a piccie of fare evaders and upload this to cross-check against a national mug-shot database run by BTP. They can then issue a penalty notice\warrant as needed, BTP taking 20% of the income raised. After all, most wee neds/chavs will be known to the bizzies. Main may be the exception as a first offence - obviously given his attitude, it won't be his last!
 

Old Timer

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I couldn't pull a point from the above but just remember, he was a sweary child.
Nym I think a line or some punctuation has slipped away from your post. I get the gist of what you are saying but then I am mentally inserting words into the paragraph so it makes sense.

I think that is what he means.
 

Nym

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Sorry for the lack of punctuation but when my hands start typing when someone like that thinks they have it hard it really _____s me off...

Does Her Majesty provide those cool shades too? How do I sign up? :D

No, they where extra...

HM only provides cool shades to BG duty staff in 21, 22 or 23rd Rgt. to my knowlege...
 

jon0844

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Rather than hold up the train and have a barny, maybe guards/RPI should just take a piccie of fare evaders and upload this to cross-check against a national mug-shot database run by BTP. They can then issue a penalty notice\warrant as needed, BTP taking 20% of the income raised. After all, most wee neds/chavs will be known to the bizzies. Main may be the exception as a first offence - obviously given his attitude, it won't be his last!

An interesting idea, but I suspect everyone will take to wearing a hoodie or hiding their face behind a scarf.

Also, if you were to take photos of everyone that didn't buy a ticket that would mean an awful lot of photos for the police to check... and the need for some very high resolution imaging equipment if you were to attempt to let a computer try and match things up.

But, clearly, if the system was to be photographed then you'd have everyone dressed like they're at a UK Uncut protest.. and I doubt that would be a very nice environment for anyone else.
 

ANorthernGuard

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An interesting idea, but I suspect everyone will take to wearing a hoodie or hiding their face behind a scarf.

Also, if you were to take photos of everyone that didn't buy a ticket that would mean an awful lot of photos for the police to check... and the need for some very high resolution imaging equipment if you were to attempt to let a computer try and match things up.

But, clearly, if the system was to be photographed then you'd have everyone dressed like they're at a UK Uncut protest.. and I doubt that would be a very nice environment for anyone else.

I can see it now

Say Cheese!

as the fist gets closer and closer to the lens <D
 

Nym

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And advanced facial recognition software is very very expensive, and rarely be able to lead to a conviction, it can only ever really effectively be used for identification in crowds of key known suspects, and even then, it's slow.
 

Oswyntail

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.... Or that I am legally entitled to shoot a Welshman, providing I use a bow and arrow and it's after midnight?...
Urban myth that one, I'm afraid :(

One thing emerges from the report in the paper, and that is that this is the second part of a confrontation. The guard has returned to Mr Main, possibly because he thought the latter had tried to trip him. It doesn't take too much of a leap of imagination to conjure the following: guard checks ticket, queries validity, and an ill-tempered discussion ensues; eventually some arrangement is reached, allowing passenger to continue; guard moves off trips over a bag and returns to passenger who he thinks tripped him; passenger thinks he is being victimised and argues accordingly. At this point the video starts. OK, this is speculation, but based on the newspaper report. My point is that it is plausible, and could explain everything that followed; it is as valid as any of the speculation about events or characters already expressed in this thread. Doubtless more evidence will emerge, and the proper end result will occur. Till then it is probably best to leave it all for Christmas
 

jon0844

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How do we know he didn't trip the guard, or that the guard tripped at all? You can certainly suggest these as theories, but I am not sure that now you've given those as possible scenarios (as valid as any other) that this thread should somehow be closed to stop any further discussion.

We have a video of what happened at the end, but not of what happened before. There has to be a lot of guesswork, and there are also three people involved who could all potentially lie or deceive if questioned. I really can't see any action being taken against anyone from this.
 

jon0844

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Well at least that has saved me from wasting money on a bow and arrow set ! :lol:

I had a set when I was a kid, although the arrows would have merely stuck on their forehead...

(By the way, I am rather relieved by this news though given that I am half Welsh!).
 

Nym

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An Accuracy International in the right hands is much better than a bow and arrow, or something like a L96a1, insanely accurate weapon, in the right hands... Unfortunately I'm not permitted to perform ethnic clensing by shooting all thick people, it would be called genocide and there wouldn't be anyone on here to show themselves up...

I had a set when I was a kid, although the arrows would have merely stuck on their forehead...

(By the way, I am rather relieved by this news though given that I am half Welsh!).

We could only half kill you then ;)

Oh and as a PS: I'm not a crazy nutter, honest, *has his eyes spin in contra-rotating directions*
 

furo1

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Okay folks, time for me to bow out now. It's been nice talking to you. I have a fundamentally different perspective to most of you and there is no point treading the same ground. I wish you all the best, railway workers and PTSD suffers alike.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

:p:p:p:p
 

Old Timer

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I had a set when I was a kid, although the arrows would have merely stuck on their forehead...

(By the way, I am rather relieved by this news though given that I am half Welsh!).
Oh its not for all !

Just one or two selected individuals. The majority are fine ! and of course that excludes ladies ! Who would want to shoot a very nice Welsh lady ? The accent in a lady is very nice indeed !
 

Nym

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Okay folks, time for me to bow out now. It's been nice talking to you. I have a fundamentally different perspective to most of you and there is no point treading the same ground. I wish you all the best, railway workers and PTSD suffers alike.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

:p:p:p:p

Just to note: I don't suffer from PTSD, I just have a lot idiot tolerance level...
 
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