Is it a sickness that makes them want to steal and, what is worse, threaten and hurt those they steal from?
They are not brave enough to take from their own size, but the aged and infirm are their easy targets.
My brother was recently one of their victims.
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READ NOWHe lived alone and had been disabled for many years.
He needed help and wheels to get around and had no voicebox due to cancer in his 20s.
A couple of weeks ago, at 11pm, he was watching TV when in walked two scabs wearing balaclavas and gloves, demanding his car keys.
He tried to protect himself with his pick-up stick, but it broke, and they had a piece of pipe.
The police were wonderful, describing it as a cowardly attack against a defenceless man.
They had the culprits the next day.
But, as so often happens, justice does not follow through.
They will be at it again in a few weeks ” what’s to fear?
If they lived in Singapore and had a touch of the lash, they would know fear and pain and we would not be afraid to walk the streets at night.
Name and address supplied.