Alan Cookman: Catfight at court is tip of iceberg
A Sentinel photographer captured images of two women fighting in public – but veteran reporter Alan Cookman is not shocked by this display of violence...
IT'S midday in Fenton and an unedifying incident is unfolding.
Arms flailing, their underwear exposed, two young women engage in a catfight outside the magistrates' court.
A man in spectacles and a hooped shirt tries to intervene as the set-to rages on. But the combatants are not to be separated. Their faces contorted with rage, the two girls are soon rolling on the pavement, pulling at each other's clothes and hair.
The would-be mediator is himself drawn into the melee, dragged off his feet and left on his back.
Sentinel cameraman Steve Bould took this remarkable sequence of pictures last week.
"It was quite shocking, and rather disgusting," he said. "You don't expect to see something like that in broad daylight."
It was by chance that Steve captured the incident on camera.
He'd been sitting in his car waiting for the defendant in a court case to arrive when it all kicked off.
"It might have started with one pushing the other, but suddenly there was all this effing and blinding," recalls Steve. "There was a slanging match and then they started fighting."
It is not known why the two women were outside the court.
We have no idea why this vicious fight started, but for whatever reason, it doesn't make the spectacle any prettier.
After 40 years on the press benches for The Sentinel, nothing surprises veteran court reporter Dianne Gibbons any more.
She said the magistrates' court at Fenton is a different world from the one most of us inhabit. She said: "Defendants turn up drunk and sit on the steps of the court building drinking.
"They urinate on the pavement or against the doors of the church across the road.
"They used to shoot up in the toilets, and I've heard of couples having sex by the dustbins round the back.
"The steps of the court are covered in spit, beer, broken bottles and fag ends, and yet some women bring their children into this squalor.
"The wives and girlfriends of defendants bring babies in pushchairs. The other day I was told to f*** off by a curly-haired two-year-old who looked so innocent I couldn't believe what I'd heard. I was shocked.
"With all this going on, I'm afraid a disagreement between two women is nothing. I feel sorry for the witnesses who have to come here.
"I've never known it so bad. I sometimes come home feeling so dirty that I take off all my clothes, wash them and peg them out."
Have you got a story to tell us from court?
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by mark, dolgelau
Thursday, May 07 2009, 1:29PM
“I might go round and take my sandwiches with me seems better than watching Shameless Could make a good series Waiting for my royalty check you heard it here first”
by Michael, Chesterton
Wednesday, May 06 2009, 8:20PM
“I like reading the stereotypical comments that seem, to always over take any sensible discussion of the issue at hand.
Arguing for a new Australia! My God, you'd thought that eugenics and all it's horrors never happened! Comparing people to Hitler, oh really! Quite ridiculous, and crying out for a better comparison given there are so many other figures more befitting! Calling Britain a third world country, tut tut pretty extreme I think (then again, the whole concept of the third world is full of misinformation and ignorance, making it hard to pin down)
If people can have a discussion without understanding the socio-economic (economic disenfranchisement, lack of education etc), cultural as well as political and state structures (failings in the legal and prison system) that give rise to the teeming "underclasses", and revert to base opinions, then you're never going to figure out a solution!”
by Zalo, Stoke
Wednesday, May 06 2009, 4:35PM
“can you people who leave hateful comments on this story realy say that you have never gotton drunk, argued or fought? all you reporters are just people whos lifes are so dull they have to write about other peoples to fill that hole of the life they never had. how do you people know this woman is a kind great mum at home? because i know that she is! so all you reporters can go and get a life and stop writing bad stoys about people who you dont even kno.
-Zalo”
by zom, radjesputistan
Tuesday, May 05 2009, 7:08PM
“how can you judge these people without knowing them?
shame on you
you people are worse than hitler!”
by Ruth, stoke
Tuesday, May 05 2009, 5:20PM
“there is no such thing as a ban on alcohol in public places.”
by Ruth, Stoke
Tuesday, May 05 2009, 5:07PM
“There is no such thing as a ban on public drinking, and the legislation does not allow city wide 'bans' either.”
by Warren, Stoke on Trent
Tuesday, May 05 2009, 10:34AM
“So, scum of the earth are turning up in court, fighting, high as a kite, drunk and indeed geting drunk on the very steps of the court. Two things they could do to stop this, bring in a CITY WIDE ban on public drinking, and enforce it. Or if they do turn up and start there old games, charge them with contempt of court, and sling them in the cells for a few weeks. As for the that little angel giveing your reporter a mouthfull, I work with a public, and get told to go and do that by two year old on avrage 2 to 3 times a day, What the worlds comeing to, I don't know. it seem like in some small areas, the scumbags are indeed takeing over.”
by Warren, Stoke on Trent
Tuesday, May 05 2009, 10:16AM
“Never mind a good Good Samarition MEB, they would have had there eyes sratched out by these two holling mad chavetts. The best thing would have been to do the one thing the cristains are very good at , turning the other cheak. You would that just outside a court, there would have a least been some kind of public servent to try and intervean, policeman or something. On the street in daylight, yep, and belive you me its not the first time round hear, its been going on for years. So Alan Cookmans the Sentinels man for food, drink and catfighting now is he. Disgace, lock both of them up, I just hope a child somewhere has not got to call eather one of these two blasted fools a mother, but the way the area is you can bet there's 10 or more.”
by Mark Edward Brayford, Chesterton
Tuesday, May 05 2009, 9:27AM
“Shame upon you Alan, though your views are your own affair. The point is that the Good Samaritan cared about others enough to put their safety above his own. Have you ever stopped to wonder what may have happened to him when he returned to Samaria?”
by Harry, Stoke
Monday, May 04 2009, 8:30PM
“This is a British disease not a Stoke one, so stop using this to knock SOT. There is a large underclass in British Society and there needs to be some radical intervention to stop it expanding with every generation. We need a new "Australia" to send them to so they can fight for survival amongst themselves. We certainly need a zero tolerance state to get the message across, and if that means a million people in prson - proper prison not our holiday camps - then so be it. Feed 'em bread and water each day. Complete scum.”