I couldn't believe what I saw that man doing in the street in broad daylight |
Scottish criminologist David Wilson was shocked by what he saw on a daytime stroll through one of England's biggest cities. Here, he shares the shocking incident that vividly illustrates Broken Britain - and warns it may just be the start
I love Birmingham. I’ve taught there for over two decades and have grown to admire the city’s ambition, its galleries, impressive new library, its theatres and, above all, the self-deprecating sense of humour that all Brummies seem to possess.
This civic boosterism seems like a necessary opening given the story that I’m about to tell.
At the end of May I was filming in Birmingham and, since my retirement from the University, I hadn’t been in the city for a couple of months. There’s been an all-out bin strike for the last 13 weeks – a strike that started in March, and so uncollected rubbish continues to gather in various places creating what might euphemistically be called “an environmental impact”. Most of all there’s a pervasive, lingering, fetid smell that’s really hard to ignore when the wind blows in the wrong direction.
I was filming in a modestly affluent area in the south of the city and, at the end of the day, was making my way back to the hotel where I was staying. Out the corner of my eye I noticed a white man wearing a high-vis jacket standing beside what I took to be his van. He was facing the road. I’ve used the word “standing” but that’s not quite accurate. He was crouching, which is why he caught my eye, and – let me put this delicately – openly defecating in the street.
This wasn’t, as........