Meet Teresa. She was mugged - but she's not going to let it beat her.

This is Teresa Blick. I spoke to her today and was struck how lovely she was.

She was mugged last month and, bravely in my opinion, decided to speak to us about it.

She was walking home from the shops in Queens Road, Clarendon Park when she was literally jumped by a young thug.

He, for his troubles, walked away with a fiver.

I'm sure that's long gone. Into his arm presumably.

Teresa, who's 65 and a widow, struggled in the first few weeks after the attack.

She just didn't feel safe going out because of what this man had done to her.

Well, on a positive note, Teresa's attitude today seemed to be one of defiance.

"I'm not going to let this turn me into a recluse", she told me.

Good on her.

After all, people like Age Concern and Victim Support have told me down the years that crimes like this kill people.

Not instantly, but slowly as the victim withdraws from life and loses the confidence to be out in public.

There's only one thing outstanding.

When he took Teresa's purse our big man also took three photos of her grandchildren - who live miles away in the North East - and a mass card for a dear friend who died two years ago.

How can we get them back for her?

Seriously, if you live in the Montague Road area of Clarendon Park, check your gardens, alleyways and the like for a discarded purse, photos or a mass card.

It's a slim hope, but it's worth making the point.

They were doing what? Firing a paintball gun at prostitutes?

Picked up an odd story the other day. It was in the Mercury midweek.

It's one I'll never have to write again if I stay at this desk until I'm carted off to a home for retired hacks.

I heard that a group of young men was cruising the city in a posh car firing paintball gun pellets at working girls in the city's vice areas.

I can't tune into the way those men must look at the world or what motivated this spiteful stunt.

I have a feeling their thought process ran something like this: "Let's humiliate those women. We'll give them a paint stain and a nice little bruise to remember us by."

It was a twist on a story I've looked at many times down the years - violence against the women who we all see when we nip up London Road for a curry or drive along Humberstone Road.

So, attacks on the women is not a new story.

Their 'boyfriends' (pimps actually, but I always feel too self-conscious to use that word - this is Leicester, not New York) are more often than not a vicious, money-grabbing bunch.

Then there are apparently quite a few punters who pay up, do the deed and then mug the girl to get their money back.

The paintball gun story came to me late in the day, so the people who would normally put me in touch with the women had gone home for the day.

A word here about those people. It's a welfare group called New Futures and they are top.

So, I headed out alone to the two areas where I expected to run into the women.

I was nervous. I've heard all kinds of stories about the 'boyfriends' and assorted oddballs who hang around the backstreets.

In the event, I spoke to six busy women and managed to avoid the erm, pimps.

Some had heard about the paintball gang, some wondered what I was on about and asked me if I'd be hanging around long because I was "putting the punters off".

But they all had plenty to say when I asked them to speak more generally about the grief they almost expect every time they come out.

All had been assaulted in some way in the past couple of weeks.

One girl I didn't meet that night is as far as I know still waiting for news on whether she's lost her hearing in one ear permanently.

A man came up from behind her and hit across the side of her head with a brick.

One of the women said someone had pinged a small metal projectile at her with a catapult.

And so it goes on.

Happily - and I know that sounds odd - there is something positive to conclude with here.

Now I'm guessing New Futures and sound and sympathetic policing has had an influence here, but the women speak to the police and when they are victims of crime they have come to expect justice.

That wasn't always the case and it certainly isn't universal even now.

But instead of soaking up the punishment they are beginning to feel that they can expect to be listened to and, if they are willing to stay with it and make a statement, action can be taken against abusive, dangerous men.

One punter was jailed for raping several women earlier this year really only because the women stayed with it, made their statements, put up with the vagaries of the criminal justice system and had their day in court.

That man won't be around to harm women for years.

I think the conclusion is that a largely ignored, hidden, even sometimes reviled group of women, is slowly claiming one of the most basic rights.

Incidentally, a day or two later I heard one of the women had passed on the registration number of the posh car the paintball boys were travelling in.

The driver was a well-paid young professional. He's been visited at home and, although he won't be seeing the inside of a courtroom, he's had the fright of his life by all accounts.

Incidentally, I must admit to a little hesitation when I realised I'd inadvertently indulged in a spot of cliched alliteration when I filed the story.

I put the words 'prostitutes', 'pot-shots' and 'paintball gun' - in the first paragraph.

I left it the way it was because I couldn't think of any other way of putting it.

In an earlier post I said something dismissive about cliches in news copy and probably implied that I could never do such a thing.

Clearly I can.

Welcome to the Leicester Mercury police blog.

So, even I'm doing it now - blogging.

Writing for newspapers comes naturally, but doing so in the first person for a blog is hard and against my grain.

After all, there's no 'I' in journalism.

Oh, there is. Sorry.

I'm just short of a decade into my time at the Leicester Mercury and I've been covering the police beat for the past eight years or so.

I have a rather pompous job title - social affairs correspondent. Put simply, I talk to the police a lot.

For the record, I love what I do. Most days.

It hasn't been a particularly busy week for me. Great time to start a blog.

I am still sore that my favourite haunt - Cafe Roma in Halford Street - was burgled four times in the space of a week.

It was a strange experience writing a crime story about a place I know so well.

If anyone is reading this and fancies a good Italian meal, can I suggest they call in and help them replace the money that was stolen.

Fortunately my colleagues have been hard at work.

The imminent demolition of the Bowstring Bridge - and the uncertain future of the Pump and Tap pub - continues to divide readers.

I have to say I'm a Pump and Tap boy so I'm feeling sore about this too.

The protesters have been there every day this week. Doing what?
Well, it seems they're there to share their resentment at the loss of a rather beautiful old thing.

They've had a lot of coverage in the Mercury, so I was feeling sore - I know, it's been that kind of week - when one of them was verbally abusive to one of our reporters who'd gone down to chat to them.

On the way to the Pump that night I made my feelings known to them - forcefully, I hope.