Not quite an AIBU but am I? To want to reply to this REALLY sarcastically?

[Electricmouse]

I reported a theft of a fireplace to the police. It was a large, oak fireplace/fire surround worth between £500 and £800 second hand.

I know who took it. I know where they have put it. I also feel I know exactly what happened.

I rang 101, they took the report, and a few days later I had a call from an officer who took more details, seemed to listen intently about what I said, and said he'd pass it over to the local force to deal with.

Fine.

Now I've received a letter from this 'local force' advising that they've investigated the theft of my radiator, 'managed to track down' the thief (I gave them the bloody address), and that said thief allowed them to enter the property and look for the radiator, and it wasn't there.
Thief was questioned and have said that they didn't take the radiator, but that they did remove it as it was faulty.

WHAT RADIATOR?

I didn't (and wouldn't) report a stolen bloody radiator. What do they fetch (second hand!) about 20p?!

Who in their right mind would even steal one?

The police have probably made me look like an utter idiot.

And I haven't had the theft of my gorgeous fireplace addressed yet :(

I want to send them a really annoyingly sarcastic facetious reply.

There's also a lot of grammatical errors in the letter but I won't be a total twatook, I'll ignore that.

Grr.

Was it your builder that took the fireplace?
You should definitely correct them!

Ignore the grammatical errors, if you start correcting them they'll probably just do a load of eye rolls and shove your letter to the back of the pile... but definitely chase them up on this. Ffs when is a radiator anything like a fireplace.

Email them back and say 'that's nice, would you also like to investigate the theft of the fireplace that I told you person X had taken and let me know when you've spoken to them about it'.

I would simply ignore that letter and phone them to ask for an update on the investigation of the crime you reported as you haven’t heard anything about progress on your case - which is accurate. Then if they mention the radiator letter, you can simply say that you didn’t report a radiator stolen so that is not relevant to you - can they update you on the crime you reported? And keep persisting.

No, similar situation though!
Well I've drafted a response ignoring the grammar but I also rang them.
I said similar to what you suggested @TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross . I said I've had a letter that I don't understand at all. She asked me to read it to her and I did. She asked why I didn't understand it, and I said I'd not reported a stolen radiator so this letter doesn't seem like it is for me.

She read the log and said 'It was a fireplace wasn't it?' [Hmm] .

I said yes and asked for an update. She said she'd try to put me through to the officer. He was unavailable and would call me back straight after he's finished the job he's on.

It must be a bloody long job because this was yesterday morning and he's still seemingly not finished it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm aware it is hardly the crime of the century and the police have more important things to do. But it is still a crime, and they advised they'd investigate it for me. How they've managed to get it this wrong baffles me!

Sorry, the first sentence was meant to quote the poster who asked if it were my builder.
Apologies, busy weekend didn't have chance to return to my thread until now :)

I did basically that yes @BarbaraofSeville . Honestly what a crock.

I was just reading a news article which commented that there had been over 60,000 rapes reported last year and only about 1,500 prosecutions and I thought: God, that’s really depressingly low - but given the way the police have bungled your case (fireplace reported stolen; they look for a radiator) - I’m suddenly not surprised by the figures at all. I mean, surely there has to be a requirement of basic competence on their part?!

Am not surprised you haven’t heard back - the officer is probably trying to work out how to explain that they’re not quite as incompetent as the letter suggests! I’d just persist in chasing it all the harder now but I’m stubborn like that…

Wow OP, I despair. What a shambles. I hope they manage to turn this around somehow ….

Had you mentioned a radiator at all when you reported it?

If you know who took it, and where it is, what's stopping you going to retrieve it?

its ridiculous, but I have almost the opposite experience of too much attention. I had bike stolen. My garden isn't secure and the shed wasn't padlocked so more fool me, but I reported it to 101 for a crime number just so the stats for the area are accurate really. Never expected them to investigate it or track it or anything, which they didn't, but I had three separate follow up calls from victim support to see if I needed help / counselling etc. When I compare that to the dismissive way victims of DV and rape are treated it does seem topsy turvy.

@TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross I follow The Secret Barrister on Twitter. They have been repeatedly highlighting how cuts to the criminal justice system mean that some rape cases are taking more than TWO YEARS to get to trial. That is also a contributing factor to the shockingly low prosecution rate.

Leaving aside the fact that you reported the theft of a fireplace and they have responded about a radiator, are the police now accepting the explanation that ‘yes officer, but they said I could have it,’ even when the complainant has said it was stolen? If I go and nick my neighbour’s telly and tell the police they said I could have it, does that mean I get a new telly?

@theonlylivingboyinnewcross How awful :(

And yes, I did think that. If they can eff up a relatively simple thing what ELSE are they getting wrong.
I am going to chase it, don't worry! Letter already drafted and I will ring them in a couple of days.

@hopeishere nope! Not at all!

@hellscatspanglelalala they wouldn't let me in, for definite and I suspect it is fitted to their wall now :(

@chiselandbits yes it does doesn't it! It seems to be pot luck.

@itwasntmeright I guess we could all say that couldn't we and again it reminds me of the rape/consent argument :(

I've just had a call from someone introducing himself as 'from the crime operations local room' or similar, and then said 'sorry I've been given the wrong information' and hung up! The mind boggles.

He didn’t even give you a chance to say ‘you lot being wrong is the whole issue here!’

I’m impressed they got as far as knocking on a door. My purse was pick pocketed and it took me maybe 8 hours to notice. In that time they had used contactless in a petrol station and ordered stuff online including food delivery. Officer I spoke to said it would be impossible to track my card as they would have sold the details online. I said well they used it at the petrol station I can see from my window and ordered food from
the local Chinese. He said they couldn’t trace transactions at the petrol station (despite me knowing the time, date and specific amounts). Could the food order be mine? No, because if I order food I would do it to the place I live. I got the money back from the bank but i cannot imagine the thieve/thieves have been deterred.

That is shocking! Or maybe not so much now knowing what I know. I used to work for the police too. Very glad I got out to be honest, even though in general I have a decent opinion of them. @TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross no he definitely didn't! Had he spoken any faster I'd have not even been able to tell what he said. I've written to them anyway, will update next episode!