All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

I was walking along a street in Newcastle when two teenagers started scrawling on a wall with blue marker pen. Loads of people walked by without batting an eyelid apart from one woman in her mid 40s who said “You’d be better off writing in school�. One of the two little scumbags shouted back at her “I’ve left school� and unashamedly continued to write.

Previously I would have walked by like all the other people but for some reason I still haven't figured out I decided to act. As I passed the two yobs I snatched the pen out of the hand of one of them. There was a look of sheer bewilderment on their faces that someone had the bottle to challenge them – it could for all I know be the first time an adult has challenged their behaviour.

I simply said: “What you’re doing is illegal and you should stop.� I turned on my heel, kept hold of the marker and walked away to shouts of “Come back here and I’ll knock your glasses off.� I put the pen in a bin and went on my merry way and you know what – it felt good.

I had a sense of empowerment that I had done the right thing. I had saved a wall from further vandalism, I had shown two scumbags that occasionally someone will stand up to them and more importantly I showed the dozen shoppers who had witnessed what I had done that if you tackle the scum you can put an end to yobbish behaviour.

When I got back to the office and told colleagues they immediately said: “What if they attacked you?� and “They could have had a knife�.
This is the assumed state of fear that people are living in at the moment. They fear that everyone wearing a hoodie is tooled up and prepared to use a knife. Well fear is what bullies thrive on and I reckon 99% of the population is being bullied by a mindless minority.

The only way we will make our streets a nicer place to live is if right minded people stop walking by and stop doing nothing. Unfortunately single acts like this won’t change anything. Scumbags tend to know all of their rights but nothing about responsibilities to society. We need the lawmakers and politicians to redress the balance to give power back to decent people.