Emotive enough for it to matter?

The door slams hard in its frame and with enough force to gives the illusion that the house has been shaken on its foundations.

From the window I can see Laura storm down the street with her arms tightly wrapped around herself.

I can imagine there will be tears in her eyes.

It’s been sub zero temperatures for over a week now and the rain hasn't stopped in a couple of days.

She will already be shaking and not in anger anymore.

She seems to be such a tiny little figure.

One gust and she could take off.

It’s only minutes that have passed but I'm already unsure of why we were arguing.

For months now every little thing can be the catalyst for a full on meltdown.

My sister laughs and talks about our teenage years and how we were as bad, but I can feel the pressure of tears building up behind my own eyes.

I don’t want our life to be like this.

In so many ways I just want my little girl back.

It doesn't seem that long ago when she would sing and dance to every song, when I would carry her sleeping upstairs to her bed.

Now there are just far too many days filled with stress and anger and both of us walking on eggshells as we try and work our way through this nightmare that everyone claims is hormonal.

She’s fifteen going on forty one minute and then fifteen going on five the next.

She reaches the corner of the street and takes a sharp left and vanishes from view.

If she sticks to her own pattern then in five minutes she will be in her friend Amy’s house pouring out all that she perceives to be wrong with her life and between nine and ten she will return home and go to her room without speaking.

It’s just another day.

She didn't come home last night and I am worried, but deep down she is a sensible girl and I expect she is just looking to make more of a statement than storming out does.

That’s become too common and the ante has to be raised I suppose.

She will phone or answer a text soon enough.

Amy hadn't seen her.

No one has.

The police have just left with a description and platitudes about how they usually turn up with their tails between their legs.

I feel physically sick.

Everyone has been called and Amy has been great sharing messages online, but still nothing.

Three days and there has been no contact.

The police spoke about how I could contact victim support and I broke down and cried.

The word victim just eclipsed everything else.

How could my Laura be a victim?

We just argued and it was nothing.

I've barely eaten. Each time I try my stomach lurches and I can’t.

Every time the phone rings I jump to it, but it’s either a cold caller or someone asking for an update.

A week has gone past and the stress is leading me to feel slightly unhinged.

For two nights now I have went out and walked the streets looking for her.

Hours spent in the rain going down every road and showing the odd person I meet in the early hours of the morning a photograph of her.

No one has recognized her.

I haven’t slept in over fifty hours.  

The police have been supportive, as have friends and family.

My sister visited and slept on the couch last night.

She cried for over an hour straight as I tried to give her tea and be the strong one.

The police called today. It’s been ten days since Laura walked out.

A police woman stood in my living room and told me that there was a body that matched the description of my daughter and if I could come with them I could assist with them either confirming or ruling this out.

It was her.

She would look like she was sleeping if it wasn't for the bruising.

I sat in a room holding a cup of something warm that I couldn't remember anyone giving me.

In fact I couldn't remember walking to the room.

A police officer fidgeted a bit in front of me and then explained how they had two men in custody. He said men, but they are nineteen years old.

Just kids themselves.

They had been drinking and on the way home one had went to urinate in an alley and found Laura in a sleeping bag.

Apparently there were some words and he started to kick her and his friend joined in.

Someone passing by alerted the police and had given a statement.

Allegedly one of the men was shouting that she should go home to her own country.

Called her a filthy beggar.

It makes no sense.

She died in the ambulance because one, or both of them, had repeatedly stamped on her head.

I was offered a lift home and I sat quietly in the back seat.

As we arrived on the outskirts of town I noticed a sign outside a newsagent that said ‘Hunt beggars out of Ayr’.

Was this my Laura they were taking about?

In the space of ten days had my beautiful daughter become something that should be hunted like an animal, a vile creature that deserved to be put down?

I’m trying not to blame anyone, but it’s difficult.

I've always thought the guy who sits outside Greggs asking for change was a nuisance, but he is someone’s Laura.

There will be a mother and a father somewhere who might be looking for him.

Maybe a brother or sister who he has lost touch with and would dearly like to meet him.

If this is the case then I hope they find him. I hope they all get to spend some time together, mend bridges, start afresh, put all that has went before behind them.

I hope he isn't my Laura. 

But he could be couldn't he?

No one knows what led him to that point in his life.

He's just a filthy beggar.

Less than human

Anything you can do I can do better. (Including spreading hate)

From the latest fashions to art, entertainment and opinions it is the capitals and major cities of the world that dictate the pace of change.

There they sit keeping sharp the cutting edge of literally everything as those of us who do not reside on their busy streets look to play catch up.

The dress or suit we see on the catwalk in Milan may be in the shop window of a retailer in London within days, but it could be a year before a watered down version of it reaches the high street of what some would call ‘the sticks’.

Similarly you can take in a show featuring the biggest stars in our capital, but it will most certainly be a few years before a touring version facsimile is even considered.

And of course more importantly it is in these global hubs where government and business meet and maintain a grip on the direction that a whole country will take.

However there is one small problem with how they forge ahead and have us all trailing in their wake, and that is sometimes where they are taking us all is not a place many of us want to go.

A good example of this is how they try and address the issue of homelessness, rough sleepers and beggars.

They do so in what is apparently a compassion vacuum.

Suggestions of making feeding the homeless a criminal act is often touted and the rise of ‘defensive architecture’ designed to make it impossible for a homeless person to seek shelter in a doorway nook or cranny of a building is on the rise.

In recent weeks we even seen the police dismantle a soup kitchen and moving on everyone who had volunteered to distribute what they had to the most vulnerable in our society.

It’s not something that anyone that I know is comfortable with.

And from our outside looking in position we do often feel free to criticize as we sit on our moral high horse and claim it wouldn't happen in our towns or villages.

Until now that is.

Only this week in Ayrshire our local newspaper - the Daily Record owned Ayrshire Post – ran a front page article that masqueraded as some sort of journalistic expose on ‘the beggar problem that Ayr has’.

In it there was a smell of week old xenophobia as Eastern Europeans got a tongue lashing, and in general anyone sitting on a cold wet pavement with their hand out was demonized within an inch of their life.

As I read it I could imagine the journalist writing it whistling ‘anything you can do I can do better’ with one eye on the shameless and manipulative headlines that oft scream at us from the tabloids.

It was a poor show and the only positive I could take from it is that the majority reading it are not stupid enough to subscribe to the drivel written.

Then it got worse.

In making an attempt to advertise the newspaper we had on our streets at least one sign with the comment ‘Hunt Beggars out of Ayr’ emblazoned across it.

Not asking them politely to leave, or how about we look to do something to help those less fortunate than ourselves, but hunt them out.

It just draws short of having a small print ‘unleash the hounds’ subtext to it.

Then again maybe the original article is a really a sponsored advert from the pitchfork makers of Ayrshire and they are looking to make hay as everyone runs to secure one for the Kristallnacht of the homeless that is to follow.

Seriously though, if any homeless person is assaulted, or worse, due to this shameless propaganda being put out there then this sign is nothing more than the promotion of a hate crime.

If there are people who don’t really understand why that is then they could try and swap beggar to anything of their choosing.

Jew would be the stereotypical first port of call, but what about nigger, paki, Muslim, homosexual or the similarly ridiculous ‘Hunt ginger people out of Ayr’.

Of course there’s some unpalatable language used there, but there is a point.

How accepting would the majority be if any of those where used?

The Ayrshire Post, the Daily Record and the individual who wrote the article, the person who chose the language of the poster and those who found it acceptable to go public with them are all guilty of spreading hate.

They are guilty of targeting the most vulnerable and painting them as the cause of a problem rather than the outcome of one.

As is usual there has now been a social media group created to draw attention to this insidious article and you can join it and add a comment here.

Or if you feel very strongly about this then you can contact the press complaints commission here.