Panorama: Britain's Child Beggars

cheets64 · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:37

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9618000/9618848.stm

Panorama's John Sweeney traced a young boy who begs on the streets of London back to his family's home town in Romania. He discovers that his relatives drive a BMW and own two homes, including a luxury villa.

He wanted to ask the little boy's relatives why the four-year-old spends long days begging in Britain.

Should be and interesting and depressing watch, in my village and local town an old woman, man in his 30s and woman in her 30s all sell the Big Issue, next step up from begging they hang around M&S putting on this poor face and poor grasp of the English language and one was hanging around right near a cash machine in my village.

I saw the young women with two mobile phones on the local bus and was talking the whole bus ride in some foreign language, they looked like Romanians.

Scum, one they are not homeless, I bet they all live in the same house, real homeless people don't have the need for TWO mobile phones and two why are they allowed in this country to sell the big issue.

Quick look on goggle and is not just this area its the whole country, round them up and send the packing.

Anyone else noticed foreign beggars/big issue sellers in your area?

nikeair94 · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:41

They sell the big issue at traffic lights here and fully press their face at the window of the car. I always face the other way as if I can't see them, then when they are fully touching the window with their face I turn round quickly, scream and bang the windows with my hand. Scares the **** out of them everytime.

jmc007 · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:42

Child beggars post, turns into foreign gypsy, hate rant.
\

RomanNose · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:42

No I don't live in a hole..

Abraham · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:43

Not all foreign beggars are professional beggars and not all professional beggars are foreign. Manchester has quite a big problem with professional beggars, the vast majority of whom aren't homeless, probably over half are junkies, very few foreign beggars, the majority of whom seem to be genuinely homeless, or at least sleep rough. There are quite a few foreign big issue sellers but seems for some reason to be the ones more out of town to me.

Orcish-Horde · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:43

I group of them were forced out of Belfast a few years back and the state and press fell all over themselves to help them. They returned a few months later to reclaim their begging spots.

Abraham · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:46

Orcish-Horde said:
I group of them were forced out of Belfast a few years back and the state and press fell all over themselves to help them. They returned a few months later to reclaim their begging spots.

How it happened is the subject of a few rumours but Manchester was cleared of beggars for the commonwealth games. My favourite is that they were rounded up in limos, plyed with booze and then dropped in the middle of nowhere. They eventually all made their way back though.

arknor · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:48

i once walked past a begger on a nightout peed out of my head munching a bigmac shouting HMMMMMM lol

there is no excuse to live on the street get on the dole and watch jeremy kyle like everyone else

pingwing · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:50

cheets64 said:
Scum, one they are not homeless, I bet they all live in the same house, real homeless people don't have the need for TWO mobile phones and two why are they allowed in this country to sell the big issue.

Anyone else noticed foreign beggars/big issue sellers in your area?

Firstly real homeless people stay homeless so they can drink more, huff more glue and generally waste away in the gutter.

Belfast had some lovely homeless charters, all by choice were homeless.

The ones that sold the big issue are being exploited not stealing in that they have been given a job that has been miss sold to them (and usually are not homeless). Its that or living in the concentration camps of exploited labour that exist in the UK. Neither are good solutions but shouting at them for selling the big issue is hardly a crime.

Also since when is it now illegal for people who aren't speaking english to own a phone??

Might have to break out the LOL[insert forum name] title with this sort of drivel....

pingwing · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:53

Orcish-Horde said:
I group of them were forced out of Belfast a few years back and the state and press fell all over themselves to help them. They returned a few months later to reclaim their begging spots.

They were forced out of the homes the housing association put them in on the bit between the Lisburn road and Malone road if I remember rightly by the absolute scum that live down by the train tracks.

Most the people forced out then now live around the bottom of Fitzroy when I last lived in Belfast a few months ago.

Not much you could do other than leave them to what they were doing as it was only annoying loyalists who hadn't set fire to something recently........

ash_scotland88 · 19 Oct 2011 at 16:56

I used to know of the scam artist beggars in Edinburgh, don't anymore.
big issue sellers aren't suppose to approach or hassle you to buy, its against their "contract" if you feel like being asuchandsuch and complain.

Tummy · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:04

Again, I'm not drawing any conclusions about the type of people who do this.

In the City Centre there are quite a few Big Issue sellers, a couple of quite old (ish) blokes who are both really nice guys.

I always used to walk past them (a couple of times a week) and would always stop and say hello, buy the Big Issue (quite a good read and has some good journalism in it) and often buy them a tea. Through chatting to the blokes they're very nice men, seem quite intelligent, who just happen to have had horrible things occur in their life.

I feel sorry for them, I admire people who go and donate money and their time to helping the needy homeless of the country.

I'm all for Charity, I give to charity and I support any worthy charity, but I feel that while there is a lot of focus on foreign aid, there needs to be more much done to the poor and needy in this country.

It's like in the film Attack the Block were the boyfriend of the female protagonist is away doing charity work in Africa and one of the male protagonists remark that people should help people in this country more, but that you can't get a nice tan doing that over here.

Anyway, yeah, there is also a bloke who we always bump in to on a night out, who's homeless with a dog (A couple of my friends and I are on first name terms with him) and he's a very intelligent man, who's had a truly horrific life. Always buy him (and the dog) food on nights out and he often walks up out of the City Centre with us "to make sure we're alright"

Anyway; random information for the internets.

ojrules · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:04

shock as gypsies involved in illegal/immoral activities

cheets64 · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:14

Tummy said:
Again, I'm not drawing any conclusions about the type of people who do this.

In the City Centre there are quite a few Big Issue sellers, a couple of quite old (ish) blokes who are both really nice guys.

I always used to walk past them (a couple of times a week) and would always stop and say hello, buy the Big Issue (quite a good read and has some good journalism in it) and often buy them a tea. Through chatting to the blokes they're very nice men, seem quite intelligent, who just happen to have had horrible things occur in their life.

I feel sorry for them, I admire people who go and donate money and their time to helping the needy homeless of the country.

I'm all for Charity, I give to charity and I support any worthy charity, but I feel that while there is a lot of focus on foreign aid, there needs to be more much done to the poor and needy in this country.

It's like in the film Attack the Block were the boyfriend of the female protagonist is away doing charity work in Africa and one of the male protagonists remark that people should help people in this country more, but that you can't get a nice tan doing that over here.

Anyway, yeah, there is also a bloke who we always bump in to on a night out, who's homeless with a dog (A couple of my friends and I are on first name terms with him) and he's a very intelligent man, who's had a truly horrific life. Always buy him (and the dog) food on nights out and he often walks up out of the City Centre with us "to make sure we're alright"

Anyway; random information for the internets.

Agree with this, an young ish English lad use to sell it years ago, then he stopped coming to the town, would talk to him and buy copy when I saw him, but I am not going to fund "homeless" Romanians, never in a million years.

I mean its about interacting with people, how can you interact with a Romanian that does not speak a word of English and has no chance of understanding the Wigan dialect.

SuperTronNarwhal · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:18

That woman will not SHFU

scorza · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:19

I saw a beggar in London the other day - she was sat down by the river constantly crying. It was quite impressively immoral. She wasn't a gyspy though, she was black.

nikeair94 · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:22

pingwing said:
They were forced out of the homes the housing association put them in on the bit between the Lisburn road and Malone road if I remember rightly by the absolute scum that live down by the train tracks.

Most the people forced out then now live around the bottom of Fitzroy when I last lived in Belfast a few months ago.

Not much you could do other than leave them to what they were doing as it was only annoying loyalists who hadn't set fire to something recently........

How do you know it was loyalists?

pingwing · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:30

nikeair94 said:
How do you know it was loyalists?

Because it was...

Well the decent came up from the bit round the train tracks at the other side of the Lisburn Road known as "the village" full of some of the angry loyalists that really really are not nice (considered a flat down there for 2nd year, saw the place and ran). Anyway coverage of the incident showed that it was loyalists, the ones that give being politically active a bad name by throwing bombs and trying to take it into their own hands and in this case drive people out of their homes because they were near by

IrishChr1s · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:40

pingwing said:
Most the people forced out then now live around the bottom of Fitzroy when I last lived in Belfast a few months ago..

The problem in Fitzroy is getting a lot worse so I've heard. I lived there for a year and a half back in 2006, the place was an absolute hole. Caught a Romania boy who tried to climb in our living room window when he thought we were out. They had no shame, didnt care who seen them.

pingwing · 19 Oct 2011 at 17:44

IrishChr1s said:
The problem in Fitzroy is getting a lot worse so I've heard. I lived there for a year and a half back in 2006, the place was an absolute hole. Caught a Romania boy who tried to climb in our living room window when he thought we were out. They had no shame, didnt care who seen them.

Well its no worse than the student problem there

(It was one of the streets near by that got a clio burnt out on it on paddys day 09)

Quite a lot of Belfast (and NI) is a hole because people let it. Nothing really to do with Johnny Foreigner living there, just people tend to voice the problem instead of just going but "its our wee country" which makes me cringe.