I must say I blame Matthew Parris for putting that neck-high wire thing into the public domain. There's no way of showing it influenced people, of course, but I had never heard of it before his column and there have been quite a few such incidents since. It would be horrible if someone actually rode into one of these things.
Not sure when the Parris article appeared but there were a few neck high wire incidents when I were a lad in Derby. Mostly associated with muggings. I guess that until someone connected these with a hate crime rather than good old honest thievery they were not news.
I must say I blame Matthew Parris for putting that neck-high wire thing into the public domain. There's no way of showing it influenced people, of course, but I had never heard of it before his column and there have been quite a few such incidents since. It would be horrible if someone actually rode into one of these things.