Homeless "hero" from Manchester bombing stole victims purse and mobile phones

Nasher said:
Yep it's true. You won't hear that side of the story on the BBC though.
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I first heard about 'fraudulent beggars' (in a documentary about it) on the BBC.
I've encountered 3 apparently unrelated asking for money people (one is outside the Co-op mostly in blankets not asking) round where I live lately, they all have British accents.
 
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Many years ago I fell on hard times after coming out of the forces and having family troubles and for a while was very homeless, lobbed a brick through a shop window got arrested and chucked in jail where I did get the help I so desperately needed.
Of course there are chancers out there, drug addicts and the like but there are also an increasing number of decent folk who have hit rock bottom for one reason or another.
Nicking from dead, dying of injured people is probably as low as you can get but I did smile when i read that he will lose out on the £50,000 of some such that had been raised for this so called hero.
 
Kronos said:
Many years ago I fell on hard times after coming out of the forces and having family troubles and for a while was very homeless
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Every Xmas day me and the missus help out at the 'soup kitchen' that the church has set up to feed the homeless, vulnerable and lonely and after talking to a few of the homeless guys you'd be amazed how many are ex-military who've come back with 'issues' (It's clearly PTSD but the support network is so shabby no-one every gets the help they need) and end up living on the streets, this I feel is something we as a nation should be ashamed of.

Of course there is going to be chancers (the eastern european groups who get dropped of by the van loads around the cities are some of them) but to label them all as frauds or to claim we don't have a real issue is a bit blinkered IMO.
 
With heartfelt sympathies to the genuinely needy and those who have had a run of abject bad luck, when one watches this, just a sample of similar videos showing the callousness of professional fraudster "beggars", one has to look at some of these people with a very jaundiced eye these days.

Bent in every sense of the word, needs a good kicking and 3 years hard labour IMO.

 
It's depressing (but not surprising) that the majority of posters in this thread seem to think the number of homeless people on the streets is increasing because they see it as some sort of opportunity, not out of necessity. I don't disagree that there are "professional" scammers out there, but people that are taken off the street only to end up back on it weeks later are no different to those who end up in and out of prison. Readjusting to normal life takes more than just giving someone cash and somewhere to live and telling them to get on with it, particularly where people struggle with addiction or mental health issues.
 
rubberduck said:
I don't think homeless people actually exist in the real sense in the UK. Exceptions will occur but for the most part I don't believe it is a thing.
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Say to that the homeless people near my town who are constantly seen sleeping in shop doorways. If you consider that a home, then I guess you are right.
 
One More Solo said:
Readjusting to normal life takes more than just giving someone cash and somewhere to live
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That is true - but often people talk in the context of these people falling off the end due to the increasing inequality/poverty within society (and often if you talk to many of them they will have some sob story about how the world has wronged them and blame anyone but themselves) but the number that really are in that place people like Gigabit talk about who are suffering due to things like rising cost of living and in need of help to get off the streets are actually a fairly small minority out of those on the street.
 
FlakGunna said:
Say to that the homeless people near my town who are constantly seen sleeping in shop doorways. If you consider that a home, then I guess you are right.
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For someone to fall through the cracks in life so utterly and completely that they have to sleep in a shop doorway EVERY night, is either
suffering with mental health problems or is turning down offers of help because they prefer the lifestyle.

There are millions of unemployed who smoke and drink and live in nice warm houses
with 54 inch tellys [ paid for by me obviously ], so what is it with the terminally homeless that they
are incapable of getting on the welfare/ nanny state bandwagon ?
 
I used to always buy hot food and soft drinks to a local homeless lad who sits outside a shop the last few months. He was always grateful and said thanks but then one day he asked for a scratch card. I politely refused but then he got all huffy. I haven't offered to buy him anything since. Thought that was far too cheeky, you're on the streets with no idea when food and drink is coming and he asks for scratchies instead.
 
Roland Butter said:
For someone to fall through the cracks in life so utterly and completely that they have to sleep in a shop doorway EVERY night, is either
suffering with mental health problems or is turning down offers of help because they prefer the lifestyle.

There are millions of unemployed who smoke and drink and live in nice warm houses
with 54 inch tellys [ paid for by me obviously ], so what is it with the terminally homeless that they
are incapable of getting on the welfare/ nanny state bandwagon ?
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You make it sound easy to get on a local council housing list and wait for properties to come available, it takes a long time. Also homeless shelters/hostels are often always full.

I am not sure how easy it is up in Scotland but in London and surrounding areas it's not.
 
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