TRAIN ANARCHY

The buzz phrase in recent times has been "road rage”. Well, how about train rage? Commuter rage. Ordinary, law-abiding, workers who are being terrorised by young louts when all they are trying to do is take a nightly train from work to their suburban homes.

Increasingly, they have to run a gauntlet of foul-mouthed, ghetto blasting, teenagers, in an environment where a security guard is as rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth.

And this is much more serious than hoons putting their feet on the seats or sticking “chewy” everywhere.

On radio recently we covered a commuters’ nightmare that all happened in minutes around six o’clock at night between Flinders and Spencer Street stations.

It sounded like a bad Hollywood movie. Young thugs, anarchists, male and female. A gang of about seven, revved up by cans of booze and soft drink with a ghetto blaster and tonnes of attitude. Women were obscenely verbally mauled and a Good Samaritan had his shirt torn off and his face and body bloodied.

It is best if I let one of those innocent commuters tell the story as he told it to me in an e-mail.

I’m a family man in his late 30s who saw the incident and would like to describe what I saw.

The usual crowd of office workers and general public was gathered at Flinders St. station waiting for the 6:02 Hurstbridge when a group of seven young people arrived, one female and six males. The music blaring from their ghetto blaster raised a few heads out of newspapers, but it was no big deal. The youths were drinking from cans of bourbon and coke. Several were shirtless; all were loud, fairly normal young people in a group I guess.

Once the group settled in the train, feet all over the seats, their expletives, over used and over loud, set the scene. The ghetto blaster was turned up full blast, passenger discomfort was obvious. A woman objected and asked the music be turned down – well I’m not a prude but the language that came back at her was quite something, it went along the lines of “…shut your effing mouth you 4-eyed effing moll..etc. etc.…we’ll shut it for you…”

The verbal abuse was extremely intense, intimidating and continued for some time, with a good deal of it coming from the female member. I am sure the woman feared for her safety. Another woman called out that she had called the police, the youths replied along the lines of “…we don’t give a f---, go on call the effing police you effing dog…” So far only women had objected to their abusive behaviour. Then one man stood over one of the youths with the ghetto blaster and told him firmly to turn the music down, which he did and the man sat down. I’ll call the man Mr. X. He was, around 6 feet tall and dressed as an ordinary office worker. The youth passed the blaster to the female who immediately turned it back up. Mr. X appeared to attempt to turn the music box down when he was attacked by the female. She was immediately pushed back into seat by Mr. X.

The 6 male youths then rushed Mr. X. Some quick physical negotiations ensued after which the youths seemed to have lost some of their bravado and were in a state of retreat with some screaming threats of litigation like, “…we’re going to sue your arse you effing c---…”. I noticed that not one other man in the carriage had stood up to back Mr. X. I guess the youths realised this too for one shouted “….there’s six of us and only one of him…..”.

More negotiations of the physical kind ensued, with Mr. X outnumbered, but keeping the youths at bay. At this point Mr. X was grabbed from behind. The youths capitalised on their new advantage raining belt buckles, boots and fists on Mr. X. Still no males came to assist. At one point Mr. X called out to group of young male adult passengers, who were literally a few metres away, to come to his aid – none did.

With blood streaming from his head and covering his face Mr. X finally broke free, grabbed his brief case and exited the train at Spencer St. with the screaming youths in hot pursuit. More scuffles continued on the platform until Mr. X found the sanctuary of the Transit Police.

I’m a male myself and if you’re wondering why I didn’t stand-up the reason is because I’m Mr. X.

The police were professional and helpful, and asked why I did not wish to press charges. I advised that being a contract worker who is only paid for the hours actually worked and supporting a wife and three children I couldn’t see the point in losing 1, possibly 2, days pay only to hear a magistrate say something along the lines of “….after taking into consideration the defence (Legal Aid paid for by the taxpayer no doubt) I accept the difficult family and social environments these young people have been subjected to during their lives and hereby issue good behaviour bonds…..”. The police felt this would not be the case,. Although I respect the police I’m not a gambling man and stuck with my original plan.

Was it worth it? No, definitely not. It was irresponsible particularly as I’m the sole breadwinner for a young family. Confronting 6 angry youths with no backup in a carriage full of people where only some of the women passengers showed any back bone is fraught with danger, the chances of getting a severe beating or a stabbing is fairly high. I got away lightly and for this I don’t regret what I did but won’t be doing it again.

A new shirt - $50. A few stiches to the head – $66 ($134 upfront less the $68 Medicare rebate). Dry cleaning of blood spattered trousers - $10

Overall I got out of it lightly. Talk about a hard day at the office!

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005