A former US cop whose husband lost his teaching job after calling out a gang of yobs who had threatened to rape and kill her says the UK is becoming like her home country for crime. Angela Flynn has spoken out after her husband, Michael, was fired from his teaching job after he allegedly broke the school’s social media policy by taking to Facebook after two different incidents involving a group of youngsters.
The yobs had threatened her when they tried to steal her bike from the couple's home in Gillingham Kent. She asked them to leave before one of them threatened to stab her and bring people who would rape her and murder the family.
Now Michael is unemployed and she has to work to support him and her daughter Alexis, 20, who was left paralysed from the neck down in a diving accident four years ago. She had previously been Alexis's full time carer.
With her husband’s career in limbo, she has found a factory job so she can support the family. The 52-year-old said: “They tried to rob me of my bike, they robbed my husband of his career and now I’m robbed from my position of making sure my daughter is cared for as her full-time carer.”
The ex-cop has been left saddened by the incident and is worried that the UK, a country she has loved since she arrived a year and a half ago, is heading in a similar direction as her home in the US. Mrs Flynn was brought up in Louisiana and worked as a cop in the city of Natchitoches, just outside New Orleans.
She has noticed parallels between those streets and the streets in the UK. She said: “It’s a mirror image but just a decade apart. Where you’re at now in the UK is somewhere that I recognise from about 10 years ago in the US.
"There is a growing lack of humanity."
She added: “Michael is terrified about his career and is terrified about our future because we live on his salary. I have been a full-time carer to my daughter up until yesterday, when I had to go to work to make sure that we have groceries.
“It is terrifying for her. Since she got hurt I have been the one constant in her life. I have never left her side, we have never had a night apart. We have never even spent more than four or five hours away from each other.
“So for me to have to leave her and for her to have to rely on other people to do the things that her and I have a system for is terrifying.”
The family lives in an assisted living community as their daughter requires 24-hour-care. In the area, many are vulnerable, leaving mother worried that the group will decide to strike again. She added: “I was never scared for myself when it happened. The first thing that popped into my mind was that I was scared for my daughter and everyone in our community because we live in a vulnerable community where people are disabled and elderly and immobile.
“My first thought was my God what if they go do this to someone else who can’t stand up to them?”
Without currently facing any consequences, Mrs Flynn is worried about how a lack of repercussions can affect young children. She said: “There haven’t been any repercussions for their actions, so why wouldn’t they do it again and again and again?
“They have got to go out and try steal a bike and act like complete lunatics, causing havoc on the streets, and what were their consequences? They have actually had a teacher fired so they have been empowered. At this point that child will go out and his crimes will up and he will up the ante. Why? Because the system made it ok for him to do so.
“The school coddled him and fired the teacher who he tried to steal from and rob so what lesson did you teach him – you have taught him to be a criminal.”
She added: “We’ve been victimised by a crime and then we have secondary victimisations by my husband’s employer. We’re no longer safe in our own home. We can no longer support our meagre little lifestyle. It has been horrible.”
Police have confirmed officers are investigating the abuse levelled at Mrs Flynn.
