Acussed of racist insults, police came round!

[HeUseToBringMeRoses]

Aibu to think this woman should be charged with with wasting police time ?

Long story so please bear with me. I am a regular who had name changed and I'm not out to start some kind of racism argument.

My ds is ill with flu and finally took him to the gp today and he has been given ab's for an ear infection. I then had to drag a poorly crying child to the chemist.

We got the prescription and was trying to manage a few bags and carry ds who was crying. It's fair to say I was harassed. I got to the door and an Asian lady ( yes that's relevant) was coming in and she held the door. To my shame I didn't say thankyou but I was so harressed. She muttered something to me about being rude, and to be fair Id have been the same.

I got outside and was putting ds into his car seat when this lady came out. Her car was parked right next to mine. I looked up and said 'look I'm sorry about not saying thanks I was just so distracted by my son' she launched into a big attack on me telling me I was rude and inconsiderate. So I basically said I was sorry again but there was no need for her to get so aggressive. She then started ranting big time so I just got in the car and drove off. Didn't think much about it for the rest of the day.

Next day ds was still poorly. Just after lunch there was a knock and it was the police. They came in and a rather brupt pc told me they'd had a complaint of racist abuse against me. They wanted me to the station with them. I explained I had nobody to watch ds so they agreed that I could attend the next day. Very horrible female pc said if it wasn't for ds she would arrest me.

I was in absolute bits, dh had to come home from work.

Next morning we attended the police station and although I wasn't arrested I had to give an interview under caution. It was only then that I found out exactly what was happening.

The lady from the day before had phoned the police after I had left in my car. She said I told her to 'shut up p@@@i and that'd I said she should f'off back to her own country. She said she then got in her car and that I was dragging my ds by the arm to the car and that he was upset and screaming and that I was shouting and swearing at him.

There is absolutely no truth in anything she said. Fortunately the policeman who interviewed us knew her of old and told us this woman has a history of fabricating stories and reporting people to the police.

Why the hell would somebody do something like that? It's not a game where you can trbandget somebody arrested just because they piss you off. And shouldn't the police do some about the fact that she I'd wasting police time?

Being a victim of crime during your duty as a police officer would not be the same experience as an ordinary member of the public as , rightly or wrongly, there will be an element of "looking after your own".

Even while off duty it will be known that you are a police officer. Even when other forces are involved.

Not saying that you have not got as much right to consideration as anyone else, but being an "insider" is always a help.

Actually, it is not the individual officers at the coal face that have been the problem, it has mainly been the senior officers. One senior inspector called on all my neighbours trying to get them to say we had made up the allegations of harassment because he did not want to deal with the issues. The PCs involved were actually threatened with disciplinary action for trying to help us.

I have had bad experiences with two separate forces so, while I do not know of EVERY victim of crime it does make me think that there is something of a general attitude problem. The politics is the problem.

Unless of course I have been spectacularly unlucky, but that is unlikely.

korma - instigating a complaint via your MP would be more effective.

And within the law

I really think the police could have handled it better. A similar incident happened to my husband, he defended a colleague who was being harrassed by a customer. Half an hour later, the complainer reappeared accompanied by two policemen, accusing him of all sorts of racist behaviour. It was different in that they believed my husband and not the loon straight away, but he was extremely upset - not least because he is Irish and suffered from racism himself.

I do feel that some sort of apology would be in order for the distress caused to your DS, too.

Making massive assumptions again about "looking after your own". Police officers notoriously get a poor deal when they are victims themselves. We are expected to just deal with it.

I can't discuss the issue with someone who has such untrue, contradictory and negative views based on their limited experience.

As I have said, I am sorry you feel you have not been treated well but it is certainly not true of all police officers and all victims of crime.

That's right scurry.

I must bwe making it all up

re accepting a caution - you don't have to accept a caution at all, and further action is not automatic - accepting a caution means that you accept the offence and that the police do not think it is worth fully prosecuting - if you say 'no I do not accept the caution' it is not added to your record and the police are then pressured to drop or continue with recommendation to crown prosecution (at least that is my understanding after being advised to not accept a caution after pushing a lout's head away from my baby which he then claimed to be a 'blow to his head' (it wasn't at all - a firm push) - the police said 'would I accept a caution for this offence (meaning pushing someone's head away is technically an assault) I said 'no' and that was that!

heroine - Op didn't get a caution, was interviewed under caution. Two different things. The first gives you a criminal record, the second is just an interview with no assumption of guilt.

Though your points re not accepting cautions are very valid.

The points re not accepting a caution underline why it is essential to get proper legal advice before being interviewed by police.

Too many people just accept a caution to "get it over with" and the implications are not explained to them by the police.

Heroine - the OP hasn't been offered a caution. It is the pre-interview caution that is being discussed.

I also think that it is vastly unfair to generalise about the conduct and actions of the police. Standards vary widely from borough to borough, and even between individual stations in a Borough.

I am on the "other side" to police officers in my day to day work and do come across some absolute arseholes on a power trip. However, the vast majority of the officers I have dealings with are professional and courteous. Sometimes I even get a cup of tea!

Anyone who is on the receiving end of negative police attention is inevitably going to have a particular view of things. However, an awful lot of things I hear about "the police did this" and "the police did that" tend to be the understandable misinterpretations of a lay person about the usual procedures and processes.

I dealt with a case recently involving the teenage child of someone who actually worked in the criminal justice system, although not in an area where they dealt with arrests/legal definitions etc. Even this person had some gross misconceptions about how things worked and got surprisingly angry when told that this/that thing couldn't be done, or that this or that thing had to happen in a particular way.

These days an awful lot of the police job is prescribed by procedures and processes. Officers have a surprising lack of discretion in how to deal with things. One of the big problems is that there always has to be a resolution or an outcome. You don't simply get officers being able to look at a situation and think "this is a complete waste of time. Yes, technically an offence but no point pursuing it." It has to go somewhere and everything has to be run by CPS lawyers. I had another case recently involving a silly incident at a school. It had to be dealt with in some way, but no-one wanted the child criminalised so we finished up with a very artificial mediation-type process just so it could be slotted into a particular outcome box.

The bottom line is that not every allegation made to the police is true. Not everyone investigated is guilty. But presumably everyone would prefer the police to be duty-bound to investigate every allegation, rather than them having a discretion to say "that sounds like rubbish, I won't bother." and have something really nasty happen to someone.

OP - I would consider complaining about the manner in which you were treated as I would not be happy about being treated in this fashion.

About 18 months ago I was travelling in a black cab which was stopped by the Police in the City and the WPC accused the driver of driving whilst talking on his phone. He had actually been talking to me, when he said that his phone was in the foot well on the other side of the cab she told him, "but I saw you drop it there!" At this point, I piped up with "Can I help you Officer?" She had not realised that I was sat in the back of the cab, I then added, "I can assure you that the driver was talking to me and not using his phone, do you wish to take it further?" Unsurprisingly she said that there was no need to take matters any further... I did ask the driver if he wanted me to make a formal complaint but he reckoned it would make his life difficult. I am still annoyed that she would have lied so openly.

I have complained successfully to the Police when we had a rather nasty incident with some lads fighting and calls from six neighbours were ignored - funny how quickly you get a response when your email address reveals the fact that you work for a TV company!

Seriously, I would complain to the senior officer at the station and suggest she gets some retraining in how to handle the public effectively and tactfully.

The whole thing was disgustingly handled imo.

OP seems to have been treated as if she was guilty.

And in an essentially a "she said/she said" scenario.

Were they hoping to bully OP into a confession?

I am shocked that you can get interviewed under caution because someone says that you said something about them.

diddl - yes, it was the assumption that the OP was guilty that is most worrying.

I guess that if you deal with a lot of unpleasant people who ARE guilty it can be easy to fall into an attitude that everyone you deal with is probably guilty.

I feel some awareness training is needed here.

And the OP should have been made aware that she was entitled to free legal representation, it is not enough to "read it from the card" they should actively make sure she understands this important point.

Though I don't think it is necessarily wrong that an interview should take place, these cases should be handled more sensitively as they are very upsetting for ordinary law abiding people.

Am also wondering what would have happened if the interviewing ppoliceman hadn´t "known her of old".

And why if she was known, OP was treated so badly iyswim?

OP - let the police know how a false accusation has affected you and your family. It also wastes police time - can they be encouraged to bring charges of wasting police time against her.

I personally would stay well clear of her as she doesn't sound like the kind of woman to back off. Or a letter from your solicitor?

But if this woman is already known to the police I'd have thought they'd now like to use the law to tackle her?

I see

Please check to see if it's an old thread first Sparkle. Everybody in this thread is probably dead by now.

How horribal for you. It's people like her who play the race card, who make it bad for people who are experiencing genuine racism. Shame on her! for you.

Sorry - I know I'm adding to a Zombie thread but TiggyD you did make me chuckle

Why on earth has sparklecrates found an old thread, just to post "I see"?
I don't get it. What's the point?

Make a complaint about the female officer. She shouldn't have behaved like that, making threats, innocent until proven guilty.

Don't you think a formal complaint almost four years after the original incident may be a bit pointless, FreeSpirit?

Sparkle must have damn good glasses.

Around this tie last year, we had a very polite ad nice PCSO knock our door and ask if we had seen anyone suspicious knocking about or seen anything as our (new) neighbours were claiming they'd had some solar powered lights stolen from their garden. TBH I wasn't sure what he was on about as I'd never even seen lights which they appaently claimed were on a tree in their garden. I'm not even sure they ever existed. But caught wrongfooted, I said no, he said OK and moved straight on to the next house. (We are one of half a dozen houses between two villages, so only a few doors to knock on).

Several months later, again a knock on the door by a PCSO and a 'real' policeman, rather rude and abrupt and insisted on coming in. It was nearly ten at night. My grown up sons were in the living room so saw all this.

This copper went on the attack, pretty well straight out accusing us of stealing... a plastic BBQ lid.

Now I'd seen the cheap plastic cover blowing around my garden after I got back from shopping so lobbed it straight back over the fence and thought no more about it. This is the Vale of York so flat and the wind blows across here like the Russian Steppes. Anyone who has lived here more than an hour or two figures that out. Things blow away. You find them. The police will have known this as well as us. I saw the woman scuttle out and pick it up the second I threw it back over 5 hours earlier. Yet they didn't tell the police they had it back?

Policeman, still quite abusive and threatening, didn't seem to get what I was saying. Eventually he goes back, talks to them then... comes back laughing. I said to him isn't this a waste of your time, having to come out mob handed to chase Poundland BBQ covers at 10 at night? He agreed. Later my (nice) neighbour told me they knocked on their's next and whilst the real policeman accused them of stealing the holy BBQ cover, the young PCSO nosed around and found it in a hedgerow. Clearly the woman picked it up then chucked it there herself. I saw her pick it up. I know she knew she got it back. My nice neighbour also saw the police off with word for word the same parting shot I had - we're middle aged people never committed a crime in our lives - don't you think we'd pick a better one than this for our first attempt? (Made me laugh that he made the same crack I had).

I still can't get my head round a police force that can't be bothered to find the most high profile missing person in Britain sent out two coppers (one confrontational) about a 50p BBQ cover at night. On a windy day when for a radius of 10 miles anything not nailed down would blow away.

The first time, he stayed on the doorstep and asked politely if we'd seen anything. The second lot barged in and had a very aggressive manner.

I have already said if they come round a third time with a vexatious complaint from this pair of morons next door, I will pursue the neighbours, for harassment and that will cause the coppers a shedload of paperwork and hassle I'm sure they'd rather avoid.

Bottom line is there are nutjobs making vexatious complaints all the time. You have to hope that you are believed when this happens to you. We did nothing to attract the insanity that is our neighbours. Random person in the street or a randomer who lives next door - anyone can be made the target of vexatious complaints at any time.