Well, it's preferable not to be the victim of any crime, lol.

We did get my car broken into once on the drive, and before DH reported it we got two of the local coppers knocking on the door asking if we'd had the car broken into. Apparently, someone had been picked up for screwing cars on the estate and he admitted to doing several (all the same make).

You want to have any crimes happen on Network Rail property. Then you get the Transport police on the case.

My car window was smashed and radio stolen. I phoned the police and they basically said "oh..and...". But once they realised it had happened in a Station Car park, they put me on to the Transport Police who sent a scene of crime officer out from York to Bradford to fingerprint the car. They then sent me update letters every month for a year. Sadly, the fingerprints did not match any on their database, no witnesses, no suspects.

But still...

(and I was gutted at losing the camera).

YABU, but I do sympathise.

I had my bag nicked at the supermarket a couple of years ago.

It had a fair amount of cash in, my mobile, camera with pics of DS3's first proper birthday party with friends, etc etc etc.

The police did sweet FA, other than take a statement. And unfortunately, I expected little else.

The harsh reality is that the vast majority of this low-level crime (and I know it's not low-level to you) goes uninvestigated, usually down to the sheer volume, or the cursed targets (which is why you do see some really silly arrests etc).

Current hot potato is Domestic Violence, which can only be a good thing. Plus a lot of time and resources are being put into racial matters, to say nothing of terrorism. Obviously this takes resources away from basic policing.

DH is a copper, and I know that he runs from *rsehole to breakfast time dealing with allsorts most days. As a sgt he does do his best to get the PCs to follow stuff up, but it is difficult.

Lucky for the CID DH who spends time in the canteen, DH often comes home having not had time for a break.

I know of no bounty payments though??

No Idream, I'd feel exactly the same as you. I'm getting fed up with all the resources being devoted to fighting terrorism whilst other 'every day crime' is essentially being ignored by the police. Statistically I'm sure we're all far more likely to be robbed or stabbed than injured in a terrorist attack but what do the government care? I reckon in their eyes a terrorist attack makes them look weak and vulnerable to the rest of the world so they feel they must concentrate resources on dealing with that, whereas you or I would probably prefer that they changed their priorities. Judging by the number of people I know who don't bother reporting incidents, I think a lot of people think the police are fairly useless when it comes to solving crime.

Its funny though (in a completely unfunny way), we don't realise until it happens how upsetting it can be to have personal effects stolen, the injustice of it is infuriating.

All i ever had stolen was a mobile phone, but i had pictures on there that really meant something to me, it made me sick to think of the person who stole the phone, wiping them off as if they were nothing.

Bloody B'stards

blah blah blah

It's evidence of something, certainly.
But the people who were called, weren't the criminals, but still might not be too cooperative.
Even if they were, I couldn't tell you with great accuracy who called me last week, let alone two months ago.

The police, not unreasonably try to make some sort of trade off between the seriousness of the crime, and the chances of a conviction.

To track down everyone rung by a stolen phone and try and persuade them to remember who rung is a lot of work, and my (amateur) judgement puts the chances of any sort of conviction being low.

As for the 16 yo vandals, I bet they will give each other alibis, and others will too. Also the police have learned that the courts simply won't do very much to them, especially if they're white, or worse come from "nice families".
That's not good, but again not the police fault.
Sadly, unless you are much better at this than me, I might doubt they are 16 yos. They could be anything from 14 to 20. If they're 14, and this is "minor" vandalism, literally man-weeks of police time will be sucked up for a 30 quid fine and a warning that if they do it again, the authorities will be quite disappointed with them.

Am very sorry that your possessions were stolen in such a manner. This is why some restaurants actually have anti theft handbag clips under the table for people to hang their bags on.

You did the right thing by reporting the theft but realistically there's not much else you can do apart from ensuring that all credit/debit cards, driving licence (if that was in there as well) are stopped asap and reissued.

Did you call the mobile phone company asap post theft?. It seems like you did not get the phone stopped hence the £20.00 worth of calls. Will you be liable for this charge?.

DH is in CID and a right waste of space IMO. And he's about the smartest person in his office.

"busy investigating terrorism"

in the canteen, or playing darts.

Although maybe that's just his office....

Not aware of these bounty payments though - which forces get those?

Not sure what i would expect tbh, i dont imagine there is that much they can do. At least not within the boundaries of their resources.

I would imagine that a stolen handbag/mobile would only be solved if there was some kind of supportive evidence such as CCTV footage (and even then the police would have to recognise the thief by sight), eyewitness who recognised the thief, the discarded bag turning up and having some kind of trace that correlated to something the police had on file or the theif being arrested on another matter and the police finding your property on him or in his home?

Cant see what you expect them to do pro-actively.

It's the insensitivity of them that gets me. After I rang to report the third time my car's back window had been broken in the space of a month, the copper on the phone sympathised by suggesting that I should move house to avoid the vandals. Err.... no, maybe you should come and have a word with the two 16 year old boys who have been identified by me, my neighbours, passers by etc of smashing the windows.

Well perhaps the police were busy skiving on MumsNet....there you go...case closed, by you're own standards YABU

In the grand scheme of things Im sure that they are not useless, I can see why you would be slightly rattled however.

Police have a really tough job.

oh lol, yes of course. hello it's the police who rang you at 2.45 yesterday afternoon please?

eh?! what do you want the police to do exactly?

Custy - with a mobile bill they can see what numbers were called and maybe able to track the thief via their contacts.