Women in Manchester have spoken out about a number of “insidious” incidents involving a man watching porn and ‘getting off’ on their reactions taking place on buses and trams in the city.
The Manchester Evening News has spoken to six women who all say they have been targeted by this man, in a period of time stretching from November 2021 to last week.
All the women gave consistent accounts of how the man would sit in front of them, positioning his phone in such a way that meant they could not help but see the videos, and play pornographic content that became increasingly more and more explicit, while either looking behind him or viewing their reactions in the reflection of his phone screen - potentially even recording them. Two of the women reported that he either appeared to be, or was actively, touching himself during the incident.
“It was funny when it started, at first we were like, surely this is not happening,” students Eva and Isobel* who saw the man on the 143 bus last Tuesday, said.
"We were laughing because we were sort of in shock, we just wanted to make a joke out of it. And then as it just kept going, we got really uncomfortable. We thought, he’s looking at us weird - what if he gets off at the same stop as us? It’s late at night.”
Eva and Isobel found a Facebook post written by Megan*, a woman who had had almost exactly the same experience as them, on the very same night. They got in touch, and realised that neither incident was isolated.
“I thought it was just a one off thing,” Eva said. “When I realised it wasn’t, I started getting scared.”
The women reported their experience to the police, who have confirmed that they are now actively investigating the incidents in conjunction with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and Stagecoach.
“I think it's totally unacceptable for someone to be doing that and it's happened to so many people,” Isobel said.
When Megan got on the 143 bus on the same evening, she sat two rows behind the man, with another two women sat in front of her. She repeated a pattern of behaviour very similar to Eva and Isobel - he started off by watching ‘fart’ porn that was odd but not especially explicit, but progressed to watching more and more extreme videos, consistently checking behind him to see her reaction.
When the women in front of her left the bus, Megan thought it was “weird” when he got up and took their seats in the row in front of her, moving closer to her.
“I didn’t feel scared until he sat closer to me,” she said. She went home and decided to ask other people if they had experienced anything similar, so made a Facebook post where others, including Eva and Isobel, decided to share their experiences.
“What made me more scared is that so many people have seen it. So many people have been impacted by this,” she said.
“Obviously nobody on the bus consented to that [watching porn]. He was definitely looking around to see how people were reacting. He was getting off on the public element of it.”
Chief Inspector Stephen Griffin, from Greater Manchester Police (GMP)’s Transport Unit, encouraged anybody who has seen this kind of behaviour to come forward.
He said if any encounter has left you feeling “harassed, alarmed, or distressed,” it should be reported to the police - no matter how small. He highlighted that any incident causing these feelings can be treated as public order offences, giving police the ability to make arrests.
Kate Green, his counterpart at TfGM who managed the Travel Safe Partnership, stressed that reports should be made on the basis of how you ‘feel’, rather than how ‘serious’ you think the incident is.
Megan said when the incident happened, she didn’t feel clear on how to deal with it.
“I don't know where the line is. Because obviously, I'm glad that he wasn't doing this. but if he was touching himself, then there would be a very clear physical boundary.”
“But I didn't know what he was doing. Other than that he was watching the video and seeing how we were reacting. I had to really clarify that actually, it was quite insidious.”
Emily, 24, said that when she saw the same man in January, she thought he could have been touching himself while watching her reactions.
“It felt predatory, and sinister. I couldn’t see his hand but it looked like he was having a fiddle,” she said.
“Street level sexual harassment leads to people believing they can get away with it which facilitates violence. It does make you feel unsafe.”
Speaking to the M.E.N, Green highlighted systems are already in place to help people who feel unsafe on public transport to report incidents discreetly - including at 24/7 live chat, staffed by real people, which can be accessed on the GMP website, meaning you can make a report while on the go.
“There is very much a zero tolerance approach from our perspective, but we do need to know about it,” Green said.
She also highlighted that buses all have CCTV on board, and that TfGM and GMP work alongside Stagecoach, Diamond Bus, Network Rail, and other major transport operators to try to tackle this sort of behaviour.
“We are progressing with this to find out who we’re dealing with,” Inspector Griffin said, but encouraged anyone else with similar experiences to come forward and assist with enquiries.
A spokesperson for Stagecoach Manchester said: “The safety of our customers is our absolute priority. We are absolutely appalled at the behaviour which has been reported and we are currently supporting the police in any way that we can with their inquiries.
"We would advise anyone who has been subjected to unacceptable behaviour to report the details to our drivers as soon as possible. All incidents raised with us are reported to TravelSafe.
"We appreciate that some customers may not feel comfortable doing this at the time of an incident, but we would encourage them to report it to both ourselves and the police as soon as possible afterwards. This allows us to access on-bus CCTV to support the police with their investigations."
*Names have been changed
