Daylight robbery

NB - Street Crime! Photo Credit: Flickr

Having lived in a number of different cities, at home and abroad, I had come to think of myself as being fairly street-wise; not impervious to crime but more aware and more immune as a result.  A very dangerous thought indeed. I learned a lesson recently when perhaps a tired look, a moment of hestitation or even a twee red hat made me a perceived easy target.

It was the week before Christmas and I was standing in line for the ATM outside HSBC on High Holborn. I had spent an unsuccessful afternoon traipsing from one packed store to another searching for presents and was feeling grumpy and tired.

Stepping up to the machine, I entered my card, keyed in my pin number and paused to think about how much I needed. I had settled on £40 when the usual pedestrian sequence of events was interrupted.
The next part happened so fast that it really is a bit of a blur, all I can recount are fragmented moments which I’ll do my best to stitch together.

A youngish woman, in her early twenties, with a broken English accent appeared out of the blue by my side, much closer than is the accepted distance at an ATM. “ Lady it’s not working” she said. I was immediately on my guard because of her proximity and, well, because the machine was working. “Yes it is” I answered suspiciously. She changed tack and began to wave a paper in front of me “one pound, please, one pound”.
Suddenly another paper appeared, obscuring the card reader. A young man had appeared out of nowhere on the other side.

Ambushed, I turned frantically from left to right, alarm bells clanging as I tried to work out what exactly they were after, was it my card, my money or my bag?  I tried to fend off the pair, who were now both waving papers in my face. Turning quickly from one to the other, I saw the woman’s hand move quickly behind the paper. I suddenly snapped and reacted by ripping the paper out of her hand and shouting – “I know what you’re trying to do!”

At that point I could hear my card coming out and made a frantic grab for it. Then a wad of twenties came out of the cash dispenser – in the confusion and distraction the woman had managed to key in two hundred pounds. I shielded the cash dispenser with my body and shoved the money into my bag.

The pair were still either side of me and my fear now was that they would grab my bag or wrestle the money off me. So I turned to the long line of people behind me and shouted at someone, anyone to please help me. The first person to react was a homeless man sat down on the ground who started shouting at the pair, who finally backed off.

The attempted robbery itself was unpleasant but perhaps the worst part was that there was a large queue of people behind me who either hadn’t noticed what was happening or who perhaps, more invidiously, chose not to notice. The measures by which I considered myself safe - being in a public space in early evening, on a well-lit high street, surrounded by other people – all of these crumbled in a flash.

Lesson learned; complacency makes you vulnerable.  Ditto twee red hats. I’ll be wearing my army helmet to the bank from now on.