Corbyn right to say it

I AM well into my 50s and have a disability which has meant that I had to retire from work early.

I used to enjoy coming into the city centre to enjoy a cup of coffee during the daytime.

However, as a result of a recent experience I feel that some shops in the city centre are no longer safe places to go for vulnerable people who are targeted by thieves.

It is also a sad fact that younger people don’t always come to our assistance when we are threatened.

On Tuesday, my wife and I were having a coffee in the city centre, when at 5pm two men entered the shop.

The men walked past the other customers, went up to us, and then started very aggressively shouting at us.

One of the men was shouting at a distance of no more than 12 inches from my face and waving a clipboard.

We were frightened not only because the men were so aggressive but also, even though it was obvious what was going on, none of the staff or customers came to our assistance.

This sustained verbal abuse continued for about five minutes, during which I asked the men to go away many times. When eventually they left us alone and walked out of the coffee shop, I noticed that the men had stolen my wife’s mobile phone. I am sure that we were targeted by professionals who chose us because we were older than most of the customers and thus likely to put up less resistance.

Also, the way that they acted in an aggressive manner towards us as a decoy to steal my wife’s mobile phone convinced me that they had done this many times before.

Shortly after the incident I was explaining what had happened to my neighbour. He said that he heard of this happening a number of times in the city centre and asked me if one of the men had a clipboard with diagrams on, which he did.

I was disappointed that when I reported the incident to Greater Manchester Police nothing much happened.

I was called the next day to say that the police probably wouldn’t be going to look at the coffee shop’s CCTV images.

I later received a text which said that the crime would be put ‘on file’ and no further investigation would occur. This is despite the theft clearly being the work of an organised gang, the high level of intimidation involved and that the criminals had clearly done this many times before.

I am very upset in that not only that we have been victims of crime but that the police clearly show very little interest in investigating this type of crime and appear to be quite content to allow Manchester city centre to become unsafe for vulnerable people. EVEN though I am ‘working class,’ for many reasons I do not vote Labour and more recently the spectre of Jeremy Corbyn and cohorts such as Diane Abbott running the show would, if I was younger, have me running to Australia or Canada House begging them to let me into their country.

However, if Mr Corbyn thinks that the prime minister is a ‘stupid woman’ he should be allowed to say so. This photo was taken in Davyhulme by Trevor Lawrence. If you have a stunning picture, then we’d love to see it. Send your photos to us at viewpoints@ men-news. co.uk, marking them Picture of the Day too. Over to you, prime minister and the leader of the House of Commons.