So often us ladies are taught to take care of ourselves when we’re out and make sure someone is spotting you or can accompany you home (or at least part of the way). We get told to hang out in groups or, for the more self-assured among us, to attend self-defence classes to teach that indescribable moron never to lay a finger upon your precious skin again. As I sat there on the Tube, on the way home, I wondered what had happened to this girl to get so completely inebriated that she could no longer walk without support. A seemingly gentleman accompanied her onto the train and she jokingly smiled and chuckled as she tried to grab onto a pole and failed three or four times before being pushed forward so she could grab onto it and lower herself in the seat next to me. She did what I thought was the equivalent of passing out on her boyfriend’s shoulder, with him positioning her body around him and away from me (we were sat in a row from left to right, with the man being the farthest away from me), to fall asleep and be escorted home after a fun night out.

What followed was far from joyful as the clock was almost hitting midnight. I’m not going to go into specific details about the ‘gross misconduct’ that occurred right before me, but I can tell you I was scared. Not for me, but for her. The man repeatedly made attempts to grope her in all sorts of places a lady should not be touched should she not want to be. This, quite rightly so, would then awake her from her near-paralytic slumber only to push him off; to tell him not to touch her. This continued back-and-forth for quite some time before she got up once more and asked to be taken to Highbury and Islington. Suffice to say, we were headed Westbound towards North West London and she was not being taken off the train to catch a train going in the opposite direction. She then passed out, once again.

The gentleman continued his nonsense of taking advantage whilst she was asleep on him and I weighed up my options:

a) Tell him to stop and leave her alone/pull the alarm/get violent.

- Problem one; the man was also very drunk and two-three times my size. He could have got aggressive at me, or worse – her.

- Problem two; there was one other guy in our part of the carriage, who’d decided much early on to keep his head down and out of this situation. I was on my own for this one.

b) Report him to staff/police.

- Problem one; how/when/where do I have the opportunity to do this without him noticing?

- Problem two; will police arrive in time before he takes her somewhere else?

c) Do nothing and ignore it.

- Given how absolutely furious this situation made me, I would have regretted this decision and it would have weighed on my conscience forever.

Coincidentally, he decides to get off at my stop after making a hullabaloo out of not knowing where they were the stop before. He quite forcefully picks her up and drags her off the train and I see this as my chance. I exit from a different door of the train, closer to the exit of the platform knowing it would take them a lot longer to get down the stairs since he has to pretty much carry her. I ran down the stairs and luckily there was a TFL worker behind the glass for me to motion to. I banged on the glass, got his attention, pointed out what had happened and that he needs to do something. He hurriedly began watching his monitors and said he’d take care of it. I’m sorry to say that I  don’t know the result of my complaint. The couple moved quite quickly onto the other platform up some stairs and that was the last I saw of them in the monitor, with the TFL man in the know.

I’m not sure if I should have done something sooner or if I should have stood up to him. Nobody really knows the consequences and it’s not everyday things like this happen. My mind just went into overdrive, just knowing her safety was my priority, whether I liked it or not. They could have been a couple for all I know. Or, he could have been a rapist and have drugged her.

All I can say is; don’t be afraid to say something if your instinct and common sense tells you something isn’t right. I just hope I did the right thing and that the girl is okay.