Shrewsbury ‘bin rage’ attack on worker
Monday 30th August 2010, 11:29AM BST.
A bin man from Shropshire suffered a broken nose when an irate resident dragged him from his cab and pushed his face through the plate glass window of his truck.
The bin man, whose identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons, also suffered injuries to his foot, when the man slammed his foot in the door of the truck.
Police and ambulance crews were called and the bin man was taken to hospital for treatment. The attacker was arrested and quizzed by police.
The incident was among the most severe in a disturbing new campaign of abuse and violence against county binmen, which has been called “bin rage”.
Residents have physically abused refuse collectors and threatened them with violence over trucks parking on the side of the road or changes to the collecting regime.
On average, each of Shropshire’s 220 binmen faces one physical assault each year with an incidence of verbal abuse once a month.
The man who was attacked said: “It was a completely random and unprovoked attack. We had visited a suburb of Shrewsbury and driven off. About 90 minutes later, a guy knocked on the side of the cab and asked if we’d been in his street.
“I said we had. He just pulled me from the cab and attacked me. It was sickening. He just flipped. It was a horror show.
“He later admitted he had a grudge against binmen – not me, particularly – because he was fed up with the trucks being in his street.”
The collector has since been moved to a different round, for his own safety.
Today refuse collection boss Mark Hunter, who oversees 10.2 million bin collections each year and manages a team of 220 staff, said: “It is a serious and disturbing problem.”
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these people should be hung, anyone who attackes police, fire, ambulance too, these people are here to help to attack them warrants the books being thrown at them (from close range – very hard!)
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Despicable!
I hope that you recover fully and quickly, Mr. Bin Man.
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if they weren’t such jobs worths leaving behind the extra sacks they wont get so much abuse
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So are you saying they deserve a kicking for doing their jobs?
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Why should anyone have to suffer abuse when they are only doing their job? Anyone who has a problem with rubbish not being taken should speak to the council or take it away themselves.I am sure that a lot of them would rather be doing something else for a living but have no choice. They are doing a really valuable service so please leave them alone to get on with it.
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shocking
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There is surely something being omitted from this story?
Given the level of violence employed and the sustained nautre of the attack, I cant imagine the attacker didnt at least “think” he had been provoked?
Balanced reporting, please?
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no wonder if they picked the bins up weekly there would be less hassel, its good job we have eric pickles in power now as conservative chairman he has personally promised to bring back weekly bin collections in all areas, well conservative controlled councils at least so we can guarenttee its official government policy now that shropshire will be going back to weekly bin day very soon, good man pickles, thank god we got rid of labour and got a government with common sense committed to hygeinic bin collection systems EVERY week
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You do get a weekly bin collection, its just different things being picked up each week!!!
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Do we know the reason for the attack?
The bin men by us are a pain. The wheelie bins are placed where they should be for emptying and when they have been emptied they are all piled up behind a neighbours car and when that neighbour needs to reverse out of the parking space that person has about 4 or 5 wheelie bins to move first. Why cant the bin men put the bins back where they got them from? no wonder theres this new bin rage!
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Having to move a wheelie bin from behind your car is hardly justification for physical violence..
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perhaps –no chance though–if common sense would prevail and we could everywere revert to
the once sensible refuse collection service
[ensioner or not i would gladly pay £50 per annum extra councill tax to pay for a decent-sensible service
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No matter what excuses people put forward, nobody has the right to assault another whether they are doing the job properly or not or even being rude .
people have other avenues to go down available to them .The person who carried out the assault should be prosecuted.
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Hear, Hear!
Just for once I agree with you Mr Finch.
There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of behaviour. I find the comments on here which seem to offer some kind of justification for attacks quite bizarre.
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I completely agree. There is no need to resort to physical violence. The article said the attacker was fed up of having bin lorries parked in his street, I wonder what he would think of rubbish stacked up lining the street if they didnt do their job?
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I agree. Even if we all think they should collect our rubbish on a more regular basis or stop leaving bags behind, we have to remember that they are just doing a job which is what they have been told to do. The bin men themselves do not make the decisions, the Council do.
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We only had a comparatively small dustbin years ago and yet we didn’t have piles of rubbish to dispose of.
We will definitely need the incinerator if we go back to weekly collections because it is obvious that people are too lazy to recycle.
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This is terrible, i just don’t know who people think they are!
Poor Bin man!
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I have to say that the attitude of our binmen stinks [pardon the pun!] bins are emptied and dumped where they see fit, lorries blocking the road with no consideration for other drivers, litter dropped and left on the floor, complete unhelpfulness. There is no excuse though for violence. Also don’t give me the sob story about how a dirty job it is and without them what would we do!
Redboy
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No excuse for any extra back slapping or sob stories for any profession, it is the employees choice to work in the field they do and they are paid..
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Andrew,
I don’t think they’re paid to be abused or assaulted whilst carrying out their work though, do you?
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You must have differnt bin-men to what we have redboy.
as for lorries blocking the road.
Many drivers get to close to the bin waggen
and are then unable to see past it they are causing a hold up due to their poor driving ability. Thats not the bin mans fault.
“and without them what would we do”
Well you weren’t about in 1979 last time labour were in.
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I wonder how much the perpetrator will enjoy dealing with bins…
In The Dana!
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Excellent, Make the perpertrator spend a day on the bins doing all the dirty work, no gloves and overalls – Oh and did I mention the dunce cap?
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Oh my god this is a terrible incident, some of the comments here are not helpful, my sincere best wishes to the binmen and their families and wish them a speedy recovery
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Slightly off-message, but some of the comments reminded me that before the election, Tory Boy was telling us on a regular basis that the Tories would re-introduce a weekly bin collection. Since the election, Tory Boy seems to have vanished and we’re no closer to a weekly bin collection, (not that I’m bothered either way).
Over to you Tory Boy. Or maybe you’re letting Wayne Smith (#6) carry the torch for a while?
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I’m afraid Tory Boy passed away two months ago.
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poor thing, i hope the police are involved
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Speak as you find, the bin men who collect our rubbish in the Mount Pleasant area of own Are TOPS.
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[lorries blocking the road with no consideration for other drivers]
Is it those same drivers who hate speed cameras because they are V I People who need to get where they are going faster than the rest of us?
What do you expect them to do? Drive through our front garden or perhaps take off and fly?
No sob story, redboy. Bin men are real men who do a tough job with an enormous amount of self control otherwise pathetic man with anger control issues would have got a right pasting.
I have to add that I have seen a woman working with them on occasion and she was equally pulling her weight whilst having to take great care like her colleagues, bin lorries being large and dangerous vehicles and workng on the highway being hazardous in itself.
I hope that the person who attacked this man gets punished, sent on an anger management course and is made to work with the bin lorry for a day.
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i hope they lock him up and throw away the key people in the line of work where they deal with the public should be respected
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eva land
I wouldn’t say it’s a tough job! my main point is why are they blocking streets/roads in rush hour? why can’t they start at 10am instead and finish appropriately when the day’s work is done, that would leave people free to get to work, and no it’s not got anything to do with speeding drivers etc! Their particular job shouldn’t be simply a 8-5 job. I will repeat though that violence is in no way acceptable.
Redboy
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Ummm excuse me?? not a tough a job??? maybe you should get up and go and try it yourself. You try walking 70 odd maybe more miles a week. hmmm i think you wouldnt cope, and if they did start at 10 am, you would then be moaning because they were not finished by the evening rush hour. just because they maybe finished your area by 9 what do you think they do go home after they done your house? no.
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starting at 10am so they don’t catch people going to work what about when the are working till 7pm and stop people getting home at night after a day at work.
imagine sitting down at 6pm to eat an evening meal and all you can hear is bin lorries
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maybe he was against the propsed incinerator?
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What on earth is going on in good Ole blighty? we never get any of that kerfuffle over here. We recycle have weekly collections for recycling stuff and general waste and we put it at the end of our drive and it magically disappears, no blocked roads, no noise, no abuse, no fuss on either end.
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I don’t know where you hale from tc but for many of us in good old blighty we are able to apparently fortunately, live as if Queen Vic was still ruling the empire. The downside apart from huge energy bills to run our houses to 21st century standards is narrow roads built for the days of the horse and cart.
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Poor bin man I say, I wouldn’t want his job, smelly bins with god knows what in, and to get hurt doing his job is really not on, Like many because of the every other week pick up I have to take stuff up to the tip in my car, but its not the bin mans fault, oh by the way where I live we have no green bins
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“I don’t know where you hale from tc but for many of us in good old blighty we are able to apparently fortunately, live as if Queen Vic was still ruling the empire. The downside apart from huge energy bills to run our houses to 21st century standards is narrow roads built for the days of the horse and cart.”
Eva, what medicine are you on? I must get a bottle of it quick..ha ha… ;-)
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I see two entirely seperate problems here. Obviously the actions of this individual were totally uncalled for and an act of mindless violence.
However I don’t believe that you can account for all these other incidents that way especially the verbal abuse. In an other area I have heard of bins not being emptied because the lids were slightly raised or because the bin was not left exactly in the right place. I agree that you have to have rules but there is also a place for flexibility when it comes to the rules for the sake of the good will of the public.
In the area I live bus drivers completely ignor you and leave you standing at the stop or even drive away when they see you running to the stop. Then I see they have put a notice saying that they will not tolerate violence or agression on their employees. I don’t condone the violence at all but I do wonder why noone sees the connection or thinks that a more considerate approach to the public would reduce this.
Why aren’t council employees told that they should do their best to please the public as far as possible? I’m sure that this would go along way to reducing the violence that is taking place and allow the police to identify those who are set on violence no matter what.
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Bus drivers are not council employees, Matthew and some drivers are more considerate than others as with most things in life. I would personally like to see them drive more safely, not speeding for example when they are on 30 mph roads.
The bin men have to work within the rules laid down and if members of the public do not like those rules they can take it up with that department of the council.
It is a great shame that a lot of members of the public feel they are somehow more superior than other people like shop workers, council staff, nurses etc and treat them very rudely.
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How despicable, I hope that the perpetrator is punished, and in a way that ensures that anyone else thinking of acting in such a way will know that they will be dealt with, not just patted on the head and let off with a fine.
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Eva, I am not a bus driver, never have been and don’t know any bus drivers BUT I do drive around all day long and have NEVER seen a bus driver exceeding a 30MPH limt, I think it must be in your imagination, they do drive briskly and this is probably because with the ever increasing journry times to get from A to B because of stupid traffic lights and traffic calming measures they must be getting ever more hard pushed to meet their timetables.
As for bin men , these are often contracted to the council these days and unless they have a supervisor breathing down their necks all the time, they too should show some leniency and common sense instead of sticking to ridiculous rules which are often dreamt up by people in offices whop have never done the job themselves and have little or no social skills, when it comes to dealing with and understanding the general public.
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The answer to this is simple, if the perpetrator owns thier own property and is not being prosecuted, the Council should take out an injunction preventing the perpetrator from acting in a threatening or abusive manner, should they breach the injunction off to the Dana. Any repeat behaviour would result in an immediate arrest and a next day Court appearance If the perpetrator lives in socially rented accomodation the landlord can and should take action to evict them and not rehouse them.
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This moron should be arrested and charged accordingley.
I bet this idiot would be crying if his bin were not emptied.
The bin-men where i live in Bomere Heath are wonderfull,they negotiate many parked cars and tight corners whith a large vehicle whithout a problem.
They quietly empty our bins and go on their way
What more are they ment to do?
I am shure that these men and ladies, operate
in same exellent manner in all other parts of
our borugh.
Bin rage? this kind of teminology will only
encorage this kind of idiot who clearly needs to “GET A LIFE”
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