This Guy’s About To End Up At The Bottom

I am a male law student. I study crimes, police powers, prisons, and so on. My flatmate is a Ph.D. student from the Middle East. He speaks good academic English, but he struggles under pressure and with phone calls in English. Our apartment is on the third floor, and the living room overlooks a crossroads.

Flatmate: “[My Name], come quick! There be man in street spit girl buttocks!”

Me: “Huh? What are you talking about?”

Flatmate: “Come come fast, man street, spits on girl her buttocks!”

I go and look out the window. A woman is running away from a man.

Flatmate: “See! Call police!”

I’m familiar with how police work. To report something like this, I need to be able to see it and report it myself. I watch the guy in the street for a few minutes. Another woman appears. She walks past the man. He bends down. He spits on her bum. She screams and runs away.

Flatmate: “See? Police, police!”

I call 999 and report it.

Me: “Hello, there is a man outside my apartment who spits on women’s bums as they walk past… Yes, it’s happened twice, just there now… No, it definitely wasn’t consensual; she screamed and ran away… It happened at [Location]. He is wearing…” *Gives a description* ”He is walking towards the river.”

Me: “Hey, [Flatmate]? Police are coming. If it happens again, tell me.”

I turn off the apartment lights so someone on the street won’t see me watching them. Twenty minutes later, I hear the screeching of tyres and I run to the window. There is a plain grey sedan car in the middle of the junction. All four doors open and four people get out. They run to the perpetrator, floor him, grab one limb each, and handcuff him. He is lying face down in the middle of a crossroads. I hear a voice from the street.

Voice: “Police! You are under arrest!”

Full marks to the police for dealing with it very quickly. I hear he was charged with sexual assault.

Two years later, I live as a lodger in a huge, beautiful home. My landlord’s friend visits and we are chatting.

Me: “So, what do you do for a job?”

Friend: “I’m a science teacher. And a judge.”

Me: “…and a judge? How does that work?”

Friend: “Oh, I’m a magistrate. I sit on weekends. I try sexual crimes.”

Me: “Really? There’s one guy I called the police on once. I always wondered what happened to him.”

I recount the story.

Friend: “I would have sentenced him to three to six months in prison.”

I had studied all of this in the classroom. It was entirely different seeing it for real. I hope that he has been reformed.