More Trouble With Langley Mill's Teenagers

I recently received an email from Chris, he'd written to the local newspaper - Ripley &Heanor News - half expecting his letter to be included, but not exactly relying on it. It was about the local yoofs and yoofesses of Langley Mill/Aldercar and the damage they cause.

I imagine that much the same is going on all around the country and most of it is down to bad parenting and - as I've said before - the television perpetuating the belief that the child is ALWAYS right and adults are interfering, thick tw*ats.

In some cases the child is quite correct, it's apparently very easy to pull the wool over enough parents eyes so they believe that Junior is sleeping over at their best buddy's house ... these particular parents probably should have been prevented from having children in the first place as they're clearly too thick to phone Buddy's parents to check that Junior is indeed staying there. Either that or they really don't care where their offspring is - out of sight, out of mind - so we end up with them roaming the streets in screaming, shouting, damage causing feral packs all hours of the day and night.

Asda and McCrap also add to the problem by feeding the little darlings throughout the night. Anyway, nothing is ever going to improve because this lot, with zero respect for anyone or anything are the parents of the future. And no, I'm not talking about ALL teenagers, I know most are tucked up in bed and are perfectly respectable. It'sjust the ones who are a complete pain in the ar*e. Unfortunately they give the rest a bad name. It's now at the stage where you daren't even look at them without expecting a gob full of abuse.

Anyhooo, here's the letter:

I thought I would write my story of how the youth of today seems to have a total lack of respect for people and property. I visit family in Langley mill each week.  My van is parked outside and it seems to attract thieves and vandals. Just last week 3 youths, probably 12 year olds decided to zigzag  fishing line across the pavement, wrapping it around several street posts and even wrapping it around parked vehicles, including my own van. 

I saw them hanging around outside for some time and about half hour later went outside to have a look around and saw the fishing line wrapped around everything.

When I saw the fishing line I reported it to the police who came out straight away. Though apparently the youths didn't actually commit a crime. So the only thing they could do, if caught, was issue them a asbo. So there are no real consequences for their actions even though someone could have been injured.

Considering there are elderly and disabled  people living in the adjacent houses, I am actually outraged by what they did.  Not only are they at risk of not seeing the fishing line, it could have necked some passers by. There are a lot of dog walkers out at night also. Its dark and it wouldn't be easily visible.

Best part of the whole event was they did it right outside 3 CCTV cameras which are infra-red so work perfectly well at night and caught the whole thing on camera. Not only are they stupid with the intent of doing harm to the public where there are no laws to prevent it, they are stupid enough to do it in plain sight of 3 night vision cameras.

I fitted the CCTV cameras about a year ago after my van window was smashed and my sat-nav stolen. My sat nav has a lot of my work addresses in it so I can't really do without it. I work as a carpet cleaner in Uttoxeter and my van carries my £2,500 carpet cleaning machine which took 2 days to remove all the glass out of.  If I had missed some glass it would have irreparably damaged my equipment and my livelihood.  Who would end up footing the bill in such a situation?  I had to pay for my window to be replaced along with pulling out millions of fragments of glass out of everything. I also lost 4 days work in total because of it all.

Not long before that I had my side mirror smashed off my van. I of course reported it, but with no evidence who did it, nothing could be done. So yet another bill I had to pay out because of some youths lack of respect for property.  Not only that, I have to drive back to Uttoxeter Sunday night time and changing lanes without a nearside mirror is vary dangerous on the M1. If I had collided with another vehicle as I couldn't see them at 70MPH , I really think someone would have been killed. Do these youths even realise how dangerous the knock on effect is of their actions?

Not only that, we have the usual drinks bottles chucked into our garden most days. Youths clearly have not been educated on how to use a dustbin.  We get the usual shouting and swearing in the early hours of the morning and sometimes find smashed wheelie bins and sick outside our driveway. If I reported every little thing to the police it would be a full time job.

Obviously they did a poor job with the fishing line. If I was doing it, I would have at least got some stainless steel cable and wrapped it back and forth over the road for several hundred meters. Wrapping it around as many cars as I could. Clearly it is no crime to do that.

I personally think the law seriously needs to be changed in relation to young offenders and what is classed as a crime. In my opinion, the intent to do harm should be more than enough for some jail time regardless of age. Such pranks can easily result in someone being injured or even killed. If I had not investigated the fishing line, how many people would it have caught in the face during the night? I really wonder what if someone had lost a eye or two if anything more would have been done. 

Delightful, isn't it? ...