WHEN I awoke to hear the news on Good Morning Ulster that a lady in her eighties had fallen from her first-floor window while trying to escape four intruders who were raiding her home, I was aghast.
To discover that she was lying on the ground for some time whilst they continued to rob the house, my stomach churned at the inhumane and low-life individuals who targeted the home of this pensioner.
Like many others, I have ageing but active relatives and my thoughts immediately turned to them. It’s a constant worry when one reads about the callous nature of many burglaries throughout Ireland, which seem to target older people.
Elderly people living in small rural or isolated communities seem particularly vulnerable. Though more and more those living in towns are also being targeted with astonishing bravado by thieves who carry out many of their raids in broad daylight. Perhaps there’s nothing quite like being evil whilst in full sight.
Week after week the media has been carrying stories throughout Ireland about the increasing number of attacks carried out against those aged over 65. Three men tied up an elderly couple and robbed their house in Co Louth. Another cowardly duo duct-taped and tied up a 90-year-old man and left him alone and in a state of shock overnight.
A few years ago in north Down a 15-year-old intruder hit and sexually assaulted a 73-year-old woman. Two years ago it was reported that an 83-year-old woman from the Shankill Road area was assaulted and robbed for the third time in as many years.
Statistically the police will tell you that the elderly are not more vulnerable to crime than other parts of society but statistics don’t tell of the human trauma of crime perpetrated on senior citizens.
Quite apart from the fear, an increased feeling of vulnerability and the sense of intrusion means many elderly victims of crime are permanently scarred for the remainder of their lives. Some just give up the will to live.
One of the most disturbing aspects of crimes against the elderly is the low clear-up rate by the police. It would seem that the sense of moral outrage is not matched in terms of manpower in pursuit of criminals or those engaged in elder abuse.
According to charities working with the elderly in the years 2014-2016 assaults on people aged over 65 rose from 160 to 310 and of the 64 reported sexual assaults on senior citizens in 2016 only four had an outcome. This is not only disheartening but it’s also frightening.
Recently some communities have taken matters into their own hands and set up what amount to self-appointed vigilante groups – though they obviously don’t like that definition. Even if such groups are well meaning and many are, with the shadow of paramilitarism still hanging over so many communities in Northern Ireland, some of the individuals in these groups can seem just as menacing as their balaclava-clad predecessors.
But it’s hardly surprising that local communities feel so driven into taking such drastic action. The PSNI does not seem to have the resources (or perhaps the inclination) to tackle localised antisocial behaviour.
An unwelcome downside to the disintegration of paramilitary groups on all sides and the removal of heavy police and army patrols on our streets has been the rise of unruly, antisocial and criminal behaviour from the feral tearaways that are terrorising many estates.
And again it’s the elderly who often bear the brunt of these adolescent agitators and teenage thugs.
Drugs obviously plays a huge part in the downward spiral of antisocial behaviour that young people fall in to but it’s not for the want of support that is out there. Unlike many of my generation the simple values of respect for property and people seem to have all but dissipated. The old days were not all good but when a neighbour warned you that they would report you to your mother or father, that was usually enough to get you to desist from acting the maggot. Now a neighbour complaining about antisocial behaviour is more likely to be threatened by the tearaway’s outraged parent.
Policing alone cannot prevent criminality but it can ensure there will be consequences if a criminal is caught. Moral indignation from the public won’t protect our elderly but looking out for them will.
