Ever been mugged?

Don't you think we are being mugged every time by the taxman?

I was walking to my mother's office after school when I was about fourteen and a youngish guy, maybe twenty or so came up and asked me for a pound. I said I had no money. He held a bottle out in front of me and said he'd smash it over my head if I didn't give him a pound. So I gave him a pound, which I guess I may have been lucky to have.

I was literally less than thirty seconds from my mother's office. When I got in I fell into a seat and was shaking and poured my guts out to her. She asked me did I want to call the police, but the thought of going through the whole experience to the guards wasn't something I wanted to do. Nor did I want to bother the police over a measly single pound.

I saw him a few years ago. He looked haggard, and broken, and close to death. Unless he got a lot of help I imagine he is dead now. He must have had a sad life, but I'll never forget what happened.

Hammer89 wrote: »

That thread about needle centres got me thinking.

I have been mugged, when I was 15. I'll never forget it. My friend and I skipped school and went into town one day. Ironically, we ended up learning a far more valuable lesson: never, under any circumstance, engage knackers in conversation.

Not only were we firmly on the Southside, what seemed a million miles from the types of unsavoury characters often found across the water, but we were only at the bottom of f*cking Grafton St. "Knackers don't venture over to this side," we thought. As it turns out, they do unfortunately. Well, they did this day for some reason.

We'll never know what brought them over the bridge. Perhaps they could smell our naivety from JD Sports on Henry St and, like the sharks they are, honed in on us until our posh-boy scent increased. They found us right near that cigar shop.

One of them pretended to know me: "James, isn't it?" he said. As soon as I answered, that was that. Goodnight Irene. His knacker hooks were in me, not that I knew this at the time. "No my name isn't James," I probably responded, with a big smile, because I'm quite a trusting fellow.

There was two of them. We said there was five when we shared the story with our other friends incase they asked us why we didn't fight them. Now, don't ask me how or why, because I don't know the answer to either, but we ended up being escorted to the shuttered doorway right beside the cigar shop, where I was specifically told that a refusal to co-operate (not their words, obviously) would result in my jaw being broken.

By that stage I was so scared that I would've given them my school uniform and walked back to Dun Laoghaire naked so long as they didn't punch me in the face. I'm not a model or anything - just posh and irrationally afraid of pain.

Thankfully, they just wanted my phone and about €30 in cash. I was particularly upset over the phone. It was a Sharp phone, one of the first ever camera phones I believe, and it had hundreds of excellent snaps on it - most of which were pictures of myself and the lads shaking our heads vigorously while having the photo taken, producing a hilarious image in the process.

And that was that. We were angry, so angry that we wanted to pursue them, but the likely event of catching up to them scared us again so we left it there. We were also going to go to the Garda station near D'olier St, but we basically thought skipping school was a criminal offence which carried a mandatory 10-year sentence so we left it.

Dolphins barn,crumlin/drimnagh,rialto,Fatima,Pearse street,tallaght,ballyfermot,inchicore... All on the Southside...

Two earnest attempts in London. First I was about 15 on my own outside a station as busy as Connolly. 4PM, bright out. After standing at the bus stop to let someone sit down I caught the attention of a gang that grew from 5 to around 15 in the space of 5 minutes who trapped me in at the bus stop and the biggest one just generally bullied me for about 10 minutes with pedestrians looking and walking om, while rifling my pockets but I'd lost my phone* the week before so they didn't get anything. Let me keep my bus pass so they were quite nice people really. Gave me verbal abuse and threatened me the entire time until my bus came.

*someone rang me back from the phone I lost. "Meet me at Barking station about 11 tonight with some money innit." "Eh, no."

The second time I was about 16 on one of the "One" overhead trains from Stratford, you'll know the ones if you've been there. Not that busy, I was in a corner. 4 lads get on and kind of strategically surround me and 1 looked down in to the next carriage. Knew the score before they'd even sat down. Had earphones in so they probably thought I had a decent phone with an MP3 player but I had a really cheap mp3 player and a really cheap phone but I didn't want to give them away anyway. Guy next to me taps me to do the pre mugging getting to know you bit that I suspect many people who've been robbed in London have experienced before. All geared towards getting you to take your phone out of your pocket before openly admitting that it's a robbery. I just answered no to all his questions that were obviously leading to him going to tell me to take his number. Ends up telling me to take his number anyway just in case anyone I come across night want weed.

Took a pen and paper out of my bag and he asked "you ain't got no phone blud?" "No." "What's that in your pocket?" "Cigarettes." "Oh you got all the excuses today." Writing his number down my hands were shaking! I could barely write legibly. He told me to label it "Merkster", "Merk" being slang for kill. He asked to see my MP3 so I just held it out and then closed my hand, so he could see it wasn't worth hassle. He went to grab my pocket with my phone in it and I pushed his hand away and then he "lost his tempter" and started acting he's never been so offended in his life. "Don't touch my hand blud! Don't touch me innit!" I took my phone out so he could see it was ****, but I wouldn't let him take it from me. Coming on strong he had me shook up. "You wanna get stabbed etc etc." Lots of "discreet" grabbing at me and my pockets and "quiet" threats, a lot of people knew what was happening but nobody got involved. Went on for maybe 2 minutes.

Then he overplayed his cards and said "do you wanna get shot?" And I just knew he wasn't going to do anything. Nobody has ever been shot between Manor Park and Ilford (longest gap between stops ever!) on the ****ing overhead train for a phone that wouldn't sell got 20 quid. I just stared at him and said ****all and let him carry on and one of his friends told him to leave me alone! He just immediately dropped the act and they all made conversation with me before all fist bumping me when they got off.

Then the real struggle began and I had to not burst in tears before I got home! Sorry, long post. But you did ask...

Twice

By a junkie living over the shops in Edenmore when I was 13

By 2 ***** in Galway when I was 19, dosey pricks took my passport instead of my wallet.

Mint Aero wrote: »

Never. I can't possibly imagine how one would get "mugged" in Ireland unless by a certain ethnic minority group. But other than them your typical inner city scrotes are extremely malnourished and thick individuals that if you've any comp and proper grammer you'd swift hook their jeeves.

Gangs in England now would do proper muggings that'll trifle your minara. In comparison Irish would be "muggers" are dotal cream soft squeeze pudding.

You don't have to be tough to use a knife.