UK: Mother stages train protest over football yobs

[John Ashworth]

Mother defeats gang of football yobs by staging railway track protest until staff who refused to intervene FINALLY call police

By Claire Ellicott
Last updated at 9:04 AM on 5th October 2010
Daily Mail

When a gang of drunken football yobs began hurling foul abuse at a mother and her five-year-old son on a train, she presumed someone would intervene.

But the driver refused to call the police or stop the train and the guard was nowhere to be seen.

Faced with giving in or standing up to the 30-strong group, Lisa Robinson decided to take them on.

When the train reached her station she got off and stood in front of it, refusing to move until the driver called police.

Rail company Arriva then terminated the train there, leaving the abusive fans to make their own way home.

Yesterday Mrs Robinson said: ‘It was a terrifying experience, but I’m glad I did it. It was a victory for ordinary people.’

The 41-year-old mother had been on a day out with her husband Peter, 61, and their son Harry to celebrate his fifth birthday.

The couple, civil servants from Ystrad Mynach near Caerphilly in South Wales, had taken Harry to Cardiff before returning home on the Arriva service.

As they boarded the two-carriage train on Saturday September 25, they realised it was full of drunken Cardiff City fans who had just seen their team beat Millwall.

The family tried to ignore the shouting and swearing hooligans, but when the train arrived at a station and the gang began abusing a woman on the platform, Mrs Robinson decided to intervene.

‘I walked down to the group and asked the main perpetrator to stop swearing,’ she said.

‘They then turned their abuse on me, calling me a ‘‘dyke’’ and a string of four-letter words.

‘Nobody said anything. I was terrified. I wanted to alert the guard, but there was no way into the next carriage so we were completely trapped.

‘Then they swore at my husband, who was sitting with Harry, and taunted him about his age. By the time the train set off again I was crying and shaking.’

She was so frightened she pulled the emergency handle at the next station.

But she said that when the driver got into the carriage, he simply reset the alarm and went back to drive the train, ignoring her husband’s request to call the police.

Mrs Robinson added: ‘The train carried on for another two stops, with the abuse continuing, until it arrived at our station, Ystrad Mynach. When I got off I had Harry in my arms and he was crying. The driver completely ignored us and told us to take it up with the guard. We had not seen one for the entire journey – I think he had been too frightened to intervene.

‘It was then I decided to take direct action. I spoke to the driver who again ignored me – he wouldn’t even take his sunglasses off to talk to me.

‘So I handed Harry to Peter, got on to the tracks and stopped the train from leaving the station. Some of the football yobs got off to give me more abuse and take pictures of me on their mobiles.’

She said the guard then appeared and asked her to move, which she refused to do.

She eventually moved after the station controller promised her he would not move the train and that the police would be called.

Two British Transport Police officers arrived and, after discussions with railway officials, the train was terminated.

Mrs Robinson said yesterday that she was glad she had made a stand and would do it again.

‘I think too often these yobs are allowed to get away with it,’ she added. ‘When the thugs started kicking off, one woman said to me that I should accept it as it was just the world we live in. But I refuse to live in a society where this sort of thing goes unpunished.

‘Arriva sent me flowers and apologies, but what they really need to do is plan to make sure these things don’t happen. They knew there was a football game on and should have laid on extra staff. Instead, they had one guard who I’m convinced was hiding in the other carriage.

‘I still can’t believe the driver ignored my husband when he asked him to phone the police.’

Peter Northcott, head of stations at Arriva Trains Wales, said: ‘We take all complaints very seriously and I personally contacted Mr and Mrs Robinson on the day of this incident. A full investigation is taking place with the British Transport Police.’

A spokesman for British Transport Police said: ‘Inquiries, including viewing CCTV and speaking to witnesses who were on the train, which was travelling between Penarth and Bargoed, are ongoing.’