SIL is an extremely vulnerablee person in the community (MH issues). She has been the victim of an vile con artist, who has extorted in excess of £2,000 from her, has come to her house and stayed (we didn't realise what was going on) and disappeared in the night, taking her iphone, ipad and credit card, which he used to withdraw £300 before the cc company stopped it. He's now sending her threatening messages and trying to get more cash out of her.
We have a good idea where he might have gone and an address for the police. I rang them yesterday morning to report it, they were supposed to come round yesterday afternoon. I waited in for 4 hours for them. They rang half an hour after the slot had finished to apologise and say they got called away, ok, but that they made it a policy to respond within 24 hours and would see us asap. Rearranged to today - 12-3. Rang at 2.30 just to check, they're busy, they have no idea when anyone can come and they "hope" it will be today.
I understand that they are a massively overstretched resource, and fair enough that genuine emergencies should be given priority. But this is an extremely vulnerable person and they stand a chance of apprehending a criminal if they'd just come round and get the information. I've even pre-written a statement for them, just so they have all the info.
We also can't do anything without a crime number, so can't get the money refunded on the cc or sort out insurance.
We are not in an area of particularly high crime AFAIK.
OTOH, I rang the police last week (sounds like I ring them all the time but this was the second and third times I've ever called them!) because in our area unsafe parking is dealt with by the police. They came out within an hour.
Should I have originally rung 999? I rang the non-emergency number because there was no-one in immediate danger, but it feels now as though that pushes you to the bottom of the heap.