Personal Responsibility.

Having just finished with the Sunday newspapers, two articles, sadly similar, caught my eye - neither of them good, both, quite honestly, worrying.

The first involved a young woman of 19 who was sitting outside a pub with friends at 3.15 in the morning when they were allegedly approached by a man who began talking to them. The woman then left her friends and claims she was attacked in an alleyway yards away.

The second story involves a young woman, separated from her friends, who allegedly accepted a lift home from a complete stranger after an evening out at a nightclub and was seriously assaulted.

Now in no way do I belong to the brigade who believe that young women "ask" for this sort of thing to happen if they are "out at all hours", drunk or "half naked" - in other words not conforming to how society believes "good" girls should behave BUT I do believe we must all take some responsibility for our own safety. For goodness sake didn't these women have any comprehension of the potential danger they were putting themselves in? And where were their "friends"? I now I'm no longer a spring chicken (nor was I ever into nightclubbing, I left all that to my younger sister) but it was always a golden rule amongst us girls that, no matter what, we stuck together and made sure we all got home safely.

Such a sad, scary age we are living in. For goodness sake it should be safe for these youngsters to wander the streets, leave their drinks unattended without fear of someone drugging them, whilst dressed as would have horrified our parents but it isn't, so they must take some steps towards keeping themselves safe and I'm afraid that generally means not talking to strangers and never getting into a car with one - you know taking heed of the advice you were given as children.