Absolutely no police response, what now?

[Sockypuppet]

For the past few months my office has had a problem with kids hanging around making trouble.

It's a mix of school-aged lads and some older kids, with problems ranging from cheeky comments and being too loud, to more serious issues caused by the older people who sometimes show up.

The more serious issues have been throwing eggs at our window, sexual harassment as we go out to our cars, and drug dealing. We have made police reports and offered to have police look at our CCTV, but they've not responded.

Earlier this week I was leaving work and as I pulled out of the car park the group of lads surrounded my car, smashed my wing mirror, and picked up rocks to throw. They left after a neighbour came out and shouted at them. This is all on CCTV.

I've made a report on 101 and online, saying specifically that this is an ongoing issue and saying this was my third offer to have them come view our CCTV.

Concurrently I made a complaint about lack of response and said I've never once seen a police officer in our neighbourhood.

I've had a couple of ineffectual attempts at communication since, including:

Two separate calls asking for the make and reg of my car. It's visible on the CCTV!

A call asking whether the assailants could be identified from the CCTV. Maybe come have a fucking look?

An update to my complaint with someone with no surname assuring me that some other unnamed person would probably be coming to look at the cctv.

An email from the police asking for my number so they could ring me.

I've told them that I am very busy at work and that I don't wish to be contacted again unless it's to arrange their viewing of the cctv or otherwise actual assistance from them.

I can understand your frustration OP, please contact your MP, it's amazing how quickly you get a 'proper' response from the police when an MP has put a rocket under them.

As I said earlier, local councillor and MP. They will put pressure on the police.

I've had this low level harassment from an ex someone will call you and have a chat about it just incase he escalates again and nothing fuck all 🤷‍♀️ he smacked someone in the head with a bar but they are not interested getting to the point where I think if he murdered someone in front of witnesses I would have to get my mp involved

Having your car surrounded and smashed sounds pretty bloody serious.
999 and the local police clinic as a PP said

May I ask where in the UK you live?Most areas have a local team check your forces website for the team in your area and complain directly to the inspector for that area
It does appear to be a poor response but police won't Check every bit of CCTV unless there is a clear image of a face, not a grainy black and white image of a hooded youth. Hence they are asking you if that is the case.

They will need the vehicle reg my.ber for the crime report, hence they asked for it.

Hi OP. Have you actually had a crime recorded for any of this? Have you got a crime reference number? ( because it should have been recorded as a crime or several crimes). If you’ve looked at the CCTV and you can see faces clearly then you should tell them that ( they can circulate stills if they don’t know them) and they can also potentially trace a car from the registration if you have it. Do you have it? ) They need to investigate it but you don’t dictate what that looks like. In your position I would call and say you want to make a complaint to the Duty Officer - this is an Inspector rank. You are complaining about the lack of response to these incidents a, b and c. If you have times and dates for everything then provide them. The harassment incidents and cat calling etc are trickier than the criminal damage. I don’t know if you will receive a phone call from the duty officer or will be expected to email but you should definitely attach a phone number - to not provide that is extremely counter productive. Put it in the hands of the duty officer and see if there is a more effective response. Then if nothing happens you can think of escalating it further to your MP if necessary.

Of course I have ref numbers.

Ive literally given them my car reg details three times.

They have my number and I've told them they're welcome to ring if it's to arrange a time to view the CCTV.

Deep breath. Email them back and ask for an appointment with someone higher than a constable. And next time call 999 as soon as you see them drug dealing, throwing something or surrounding your car.

And if they ask for the details again, give them. It is to make sure they're not mixing up cases.

We had a problem with Anti social behaviour where I used to live.

I kept a detailed diary, took photos when it was safe to do so and sent it regularly to the police. You could also send it to local councillors or your MP. It gave the police enough information that there was a long standing persistent problem that they took it seriously.
The police are stretched and so have to prioritise so help them help you.

why didn't you call 999 when the kids were criminally damaging your car with you in it?
this doesn't need an quick response now! are the kids identifiable from the cctv? if it's just blurry images that are only identifiable as 'humans' I don't know what you would expect them to do with it and it's fair enough for them to clarify this before sending an officer or CSO to seize it.
You will need to provide a witness statement which can be done over the phone, if you refuse you to do so that's your look out but not in your interest.
The CCTV should stay on the system for a month so they have plenty of time to come and get it and someone from your office should have down loaded it if you consider it to be evidential.
They need the VRM for the crime report, sometimes insurance companies would ring up to check the details so again, it's in your interest to ensure they are correct.

Email them back and ask for an appointment with someone higher than a constable.
You can ask, doesn't mean you'll get. Might get a call back from a Sgt if you make a complaint but if you can talk to a Sgt on the phone presumably you could engage with the staff that have rang/tried to contact you.

I've been doing nothing but giving witness statements for the last six months and otherwise "engaging with the police" and "helping them help me" which has evidently enabled them to record "activity" on a case whilst doing fuck-all.

Of course the assailants are recognisable on our CCTV footage, that's why I asked them to come view. Mp4s are too big to email.

I didn't ring 999 because by the time my hands were steady enough the assailants were running away. Nice victim-blaming.

I need to just take a step back from this. It's making me insanely angry.

I would respect the police more if they just said outright "" You're on your own lady, we're not going to do anything."

But instead I'm given innumerable reference numbers for reports that no one seems to keeping track of. If I try to ring and follow-up that means I am taking time away from my clients to listen to some bored bureaucrat with so surname saying,"Can I get more details from yoursef please..."

Every single time you witness drug dealing, antisocial behaviour or experience harassment you need to get onto 999 and report it immediately & repeatedly and get any witnesses to do the same - call volume is what will get you a response here.
The sad reality for many provincial forces is a serious lack of resources and those officers that are available will be responding to 999 calls not following up on 101 reports.

I would genuinely just move. Sounds like you live in a right shit pit.

Secondly I'd stop voting Tory as their cut backs are the reason you're in this mess 9/10 people in a police station are civilian now.

Thirdly - fight back. If the police then turn up you can prove you tried really hard to get them to come and they never did so you had to resort to self defence. Baseball bat in your car or the tyre iron would be a good start.

those officers that are available will be responding to 999 calls not following up on 101 reports

Not strictly true. Calla are responded to based on what they're reporting not how the call is received. There seems to be a common misconception that 999 calls her a higher priority than 101. Not always the case. The main advantage of calling 999 is your call will be answered pretty much immediately whereas 101 will take longer.

I never even look at the part of the screen which says how a call came in. Most of the response officers on my shift will probably be dealing with 101 calls actually

The lack of follow up the OP is quoting is sadly not unusual. The cops I work with have a list of enquiries that are just ridiculous. Because there are so few of them now on shifts or available they spend their whole shift running from call to call or more frustratingly sitting at A&E with people with MH issues, and get little or no time to follow up existing enquiries.

I'd recommend as pp have suggested calling the local police office and ask to speak to a Sgt or Inspector

Police will still need the cctv downloaded to a disc or other format to circulate the images.

Telling you to dial 999 is not victim blaming it is literally the advice given by all forces. Something a long the lines of "I have just been attacked in my car, they ran off down X street"

I’ve had this when someone broke into my car and stole pretty much the whole insides of it. £15k worth of damage.
For me though the police sadly admitted straight away they just don’t have the time to pursue the case as there’s too many of the same crimes happening in my area which I suppose is just a sad situation that society is in now.

I did think, what kind of country says; actually there’s so much crime we let’s just not bother to apprehend those that did it anymore! But that’s the government not the police fault.
Hope you get answers soon, I would go to the actual police station if possible and ask to see someone say it’s distressing you.

If they do need it downloaded to a disc they haven't told me. No one uses discs anymore.

Not a single police force advises to ring 999 after a crime. It's for when a crime is in process.

Saying to a victim "You should have done [random thing]" is victim-blaming.

Bonus points for making up rules about 999 and citing 90s-era technology.

@sockypuppet

What did you actually want from this thread? Because you’re not happy with any posters response!

Of course you call 999 when a serious crime has happened, it doesn’t matter if it’s during or immediately after, they could have sent a car around to patrol for any groups of youths looking suspicious, which is better than nothing.

Sadly there just aren’t enough police officers to deal with all reported crimes in the way we would like. As much as it will annoy you there will be far more serious issues that they have to prioritise. It’s shit but it’s just the way it is.

@Sockypuppet

I am so sorry to hear about this.

Please find out the name of the police person in charge of the local station and write a letter [not an e-mail, not twitter etc] to that person by name setting out the problem and that you want it treated as a complaint.

At the bottom of the letter copy it to your MP House of Commons London SW1 etc

Part of the problem is often that the police will say "no one actually asked for it as a complaint

I asked about a crime reference number because incidents are logged onto another system called CAD. They are not the same thing at all..... so do you have a crime reference number or a CAD number? If it’s a crime reference the crime should be shown as either allocated to an officer to look at ( screened in) or shown as no further action. ( screened out). It’s really helpful in moving things along if you can answer that question. Other than that complaining to the duty officer would be the next course of action in my force area.

Thanks for the responses about MPs and from those with experience in forces.