To think this is unbelievably shit from the police?

[TheLostDiadem]

Six weeks ago my elderly mum had her house burgled while she was asleep upstairs. Not a lot of valuable things were taken as she doesn’t really have much but my (deceased) dad’s medals were taken, her laptop, a box of jewellery belonging to my grandma was taken and her cat was found downstairs with a broken rib where we assume he was kicked (but obviously can’t be certain it was the burglar).

She phoned the local police number and was told to report it online. I came round to do it and help her tidy up and make sure she was ok etc. 48hrs later and still heard nothing from the police so I called them to be told they were incredibly busy and responses can take up to a week. Finally, 8 days after being robbed my mum gets an answer phone message from the police saying they’ve received her report and given her a crime reference number so she can claim on insurance. If she has any further queries she can email them and they’ll get back to her. No enquiry, not welfare check, nothing. Just a crime reference number over a week later.

I live with my dc in the same town. In the garden of my house is an outhouse that is currently being renovated so that when my dm becomes less independent she can live there. It’s nearly finished and has been separated off from my house and has a separate entrance and drive. The electricity had finally been connected last week so last night I decided to do a sleep over there with dc, just for something to do. At 12.15 I was woken up by police hammering on the door. They immediately asked me my address and what I was doing there. I said I lived next door, was sleeping over with dc, had something happened, was dm ok as I assumed something bad had happened. They wouldn’t tell me anything just asked for proof of address. I said it was all next door and they demanded I go and get it. I wasn’t happy leaving dc alone with the police so had to wake them up and drag them over and back again while I got my driving license. It was only then that I realised they thought that I was breaking lockdown rules (very touristy area). I gave them driving license and got a lecture on how we weren’t supposed to leave home unless absolutely necessary, fancying a sleep over wasn’t necessary and I wasn’t to do it again. I asked if it was any different to camping in the garden and was that allowed, what possible harm am I doing sleeping in what is basically a garage and was asked “are you sure you want to do this? You have your children with you and I’m sure you don’t want a scene”. I found this genuinely quite frightening as it was two big, male police officers and I was alone with two young dc. They then left after telling me to make sure I stay at home from now on and that they wouldn’t take further action this time.

TLDR - my mum was burgled and police responded a week later with a crime reference number and nothing else

I slept in the converted garage in the garden with 2dc and was woken in the night by 2 police men to be lectured firmly about lockdown rules.

If I’m not being unreasonable do you think a complaint would be warranted? I’m one of those people who have never really had any dealings with the police and sort of assumed they’d be on my side. Really shocked at what I’ve experienced the 2 times I’ve actually dealt with them though.

[quote DdraigGoch]@Roo84 the officers I know are great. I don't bash them, I bash the paperwork culture which the Home Office and senior officers have been cultivating for decades now. In Canada it takes a tenth of the time for an officer to be back on the street after an arrest compared with the UK.[/quote]
True.

My town (pop approx 18k) has 2 officers on shift on week nights. If they arrest someone, they have to take them to another town (10 or 18 miles away) as there's no custody suite at our local nick. That can take them out of circulation for several hours, leaving the town with no police presence at all.

Our police station is only open 9-5, Mon-Fri, which was a source of some amusement to a Met Police officer I met a few years ago.

Definitely complain. I'm angry on your behalf.

Suburban Chester is not fucking Fallujah mate. Calm your tits

Pmsl! I'm stealing this (with appropriate change of location), for use should an appropriate occasion arise.

We were burgled twice, had police out within a few hours both times but that was it, OH found some of the stuff that had been stolen himself and a different force assisted in its retrieval.

We then had a visit because OH was selling a bike online and the police had had a report that the bike was stolen. They came round and questioned OH, were very suspicious, were mentioning handling stolen property etc. OH had bought the bike a few weeks earlier... from the police auction. Had receipts and everything.

@Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

Sorry YABU The issues are separate And you were breaking lockdown rules thoughI don't think they should have spoken to you in that way or frightened you or your children.

How was the OP breaking lockdown rules by sleeping in her own property that is in the same grounds as the building she normally uses for sleeping?

@Notabove25

I think a serious letter to the police commissioner is needed. A genuine attempt to allow him to get his house in order.

And the local press/a FB campaign to see if you can gry the medals back.

his house in order?

Our P&CC is a woman, and I doubt if she's the only one.

@LakieLady I sympathise so much. I’ve recently had an awful experience with someone who really needed sectioning. You’d think this would be well within police remit as obviously you can’t take a mentally ill person who doesn’t want to go to hospital in an ambulance without police restraint, yet according to the numerous paramedics we dealt with the police will do literally anything to avoid coming out to someone in a mental health crisis unless they are running round the streets with a machete (their words). Luckily for me eventually the GP ordered the police to attend as it was a medical emergency by that point. But had that not happened this person could easily be dead. They would have been a danger to others as well had they been living alone without constant supervision from relatives, because they believed they could drive safely. When the police arrived, the acted as though they were attending a crime, threatening the person with pepper spray and being really heavy handed. Saying they were wasting their time and they needed to get home to their wives for their tea! This was a person who was severely mentally and physically unwell, who wasn’t violent but was resisting going in an ambulance, and was ultimately terrified as they didn’t have much understanding of the situation. I mean do they not have training on how to act ? If anyone else attended a profession with that sort of attitude surely they’d be sacked.

I was brought up to have total respect for police but two incidents when I witnessed them being very heavy handed made me realise that a lot of them are thugs in a uniform. Not all of course, but a lot of them are, especially in the Met Police.

I recently retired from the Police after 30 years. Sadly the Police service is broken. It never recovered from Theresa May decimating it. The quality of recruits is poor, no one wants to be a detective because they lose out on shift allowances. There’s zero traffic enforcement being done, which impacts on the number of serious and fatal collisions. There are some very dedicated people doing the job but I fear they’re swimming against a tide of apathy. It’s not that officers don’t want to attend burglaries but they are spending their days on bed watches, mental health cases and being social workers. In many ways it’s progress but in many other ways it’s sadly not. God knows when it will recover. I hope your mum is ok.

Complain. Complain. Complain.

That is absolutely outrageous.

What constabulary was it OP?

I had a lockdown-related police encounter recently.

I was sitting in my car, in a town centre car park, drinking a coffee and a police car parked nearby. One officer got out and crossed the road to the coffee shop, and a couple of minutes later, the second one strolled over and knocked on my car window.

I wound the window down and we had the following convo:

Plod (with proper sneery attitude): Good morning, madam, is this your car?

Me: Yes.

Plod: And is it registered at your home address?

Me: Yes.

Plod (now sounding patronising): You're a long way from home, madam, would you mind telling me the purpose of your journey?

Me: Yes, I'm on my way to XXXX hospital for my Covid vaccination, the nearer centres were fully booked. Would you like to see the text I've got confirming the appointment?

Plod (crestfallen): That won't be necessary, thank you madam.

He seemed so gutted that I was legit I half expected him to check my lights and tyres, in the hope that he could issue a penalty notice.

They seem very keen on policing Covid imo.

The police are a joke, only interested in the lowest of low hanging fruit, which right now is covid stuff, and of course people tweeting things other people don’t like.

Sadly obvs that hold power and authority tend to attract arseholes who like weilding power and authority, so it stands to reason that a large number of coppers are twats. There are some really good ones as well but god are there a lot of arseholes.

I suppose it's because of the way they're targeted for results but they do seem to "need" to find something if they stop you or attend a call.

My mum drives a very old car that she's had from new. Very low mileage, regularly serviced and immaculately maintained. She was pulled over, I imagine because they thought "old banger, well be able to find loads wrong" but they didn't. However, after asking her to get out of the car, they gave her a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt.

Mum wore seatbelts religiously long before they were a legal requirement. Dsis and I had car seats long before that was the norm, Mum wouldn't back off the drive without one, but how does she prove that?

Jobs that hold power and authority*

Terrible situations OP - hope your Mum is ok and you and your children - neither scenarios do much to foster community relations do they?

I'm not a police basher by any means but I've also had experiences which have left me feeling that the approach to policing is somewhat selective.

About 18 months ago we heard a big thud, the house shook, and when we rushed outside it was in time to see a BMW screeching away from our frontage. My DP and a friend had beaten me outside, and an eyewitness confirmed that the car had come round the corner by our house so fast, they lost control and ended up T boning the SORN van on our parking space so hard it had been shunted a good 6 inches into the front wall. No structural damage to the house - van was parked side on as that's how our space is alongside the pavement IYSWIM. I called 999 as the eyewitness said that the passenger in the car was screaming and distressed but the driver obviously just wanted to high tail it away, plus reckless and endangering driving etc. I was able to give the registration as I found the actual number plate had sheared off and we knew which direction the car had gone in. My main concern was that the driver might have been under the influence, plus hyped up by the crash, plus the passenger sounded injured and possibly under duress, a whole cocktail of legitimate public safety concerns. There was no attendance.

The van belonged to our housemate and I helped him with following up on the insurance claim. There was a crime number for the insurance, but when I asked about action against the driver I was told by the police that they would send a letter to the registered address....and that was pretty much it. I did a thread on here under my old user name, and the consensus was pretty much that it was only minor property damage and what could the police realistically be expected to do given how hard their jobs were, budget cuts etc etc. It was quite the wake up call.

On balance I've had more unsatisfactory experiences with the police than good ones..... and I would never call out on a whim, and have only done so far when I can't safely deal with an issue safely myself. I have a bricks and mortar shop in a rough spot and one summer due to anti-social drinkers and general disorder we had to call in about 8 incidents over a two month period. It got embarrassing frankly, but when people are fighting and bloody and threatening to put in shop windows etc, it's a public safety issue.

The danger with perceived apathy from the police with regard to potentially serious issues is that if the public take action, they are in danger of getting on the wrong side of the law even if they're trying to protect themselves, others or property, and also aren't experts in de-escalation so things can get out of hand.

Things have really gone a bit awry with it all these days.

@Whatisthisfuckery

The police are a joke, only interested in the lowest of low hanging fruit, which right now is covid stuff, and of course people tweeting things other people don’t like.

Sadly obvs that hold power and authority tend to attract arseholes who like weilding power and authority, so it stands to reason that a large number of coppers are twats. There are some really good ones as well but god are there a lot of arseholes.

I'd disagree that arseholes are very much in the minority.

They just leave a terribly lasting impression.

@Dingleydel, in some ways, I sympathise with them re MH. There's such a shortage of acute psych beds that being arrested and kept in the nick for 72 hours is the easiest way to get admitted, at least where I live.

But I was livid about them not taking the threats seriously, especially as they had the name of the client making the threats and a quick check would have shown them that she had a history of violent assaults. She'd seen my car and I worked alone in the area where she was living, so she had a good chance of spotting me out and about.

And threatening behaviour is still on the statute book afaik. But they seemed to think it was completely ok for them to ignore it.

Work were brilliant though. They offered me special leave (on full pay), got other staff to cover any essential appointments I had in that town, and checked on me regularly to make sure I was ok. We're issued with a security device linked to GPS, so they can check where we are if any of us go missing (providing it's switched on of course, some staff only switch theirs on when they're on visits, so they can skive).

Most definitely complain OP. Thats appalling treatment of you and your mum. You weren't breaking any lockdown rules at all by being on your own property. Thats just ludicrous.

Police were called to my previous NDN’s place last year during first lockdown. Man had gone round another neighbour’s house, against lockdown rules, got pissed, then one back and pulled a knife when female NDN had said she wanted to finish with him, all in front of a 9 year old child.

Police told male NDN to stay with neighbour he’d got pissed with and to stay away until the morning. They asked him if he’d got a key but didn’t bother to check, escorted him out the front door and fucked off. 5 minutes later he was back in, with his key, causing trouble again. Police were called, again, but this time they didn’t even bother coming out. Female NDN and child could have been killed, but then what do the police care?

So it seems you can break lockdown rules, if you’re a man, and you can threaten women and children, if you’re a man. Men aren’t so easy or fun to intimidate though, so...

Has the out building been giver it’s own address?
If so you are staying away from home which is not allowed.

But saying that when the police saw you open the door to your main house should have been proof enough that you live there.

You say it has its own entrance and drive. Sounds like you are trying to set it up as a separate home. Maybe the neighbours think your trying to get round some planning rules and reported you.
Can’t see why you’d build it for your mum to live in when she’s unable to cope on her own. Surely if less independent she shouldn’t be driving so why the independent drive?

@fuzzyduck1- a separate entrance so she keeps independence as far as possible? So any deliveries can go straight to get? So her visitors don’t have to declare themselves to OP? What an odd thing to take issue with - as though older people moving closer to family for support should immediately surrender their own lives....

@fuzzyduck1

Has the out building been giver it’s own address? If so you are staying away from home which is not allowed.

But saying that when the police saw you open the door to your main house should have been proof enough that you live there.

You say it has its own entrance and drive. Sounds like you are trying to set it up as a separate home. Maybe the neighbours think your trying to get round some planning rules and reported you.
Can’t see why you’d build it for your mum to live in when she’s unable to cope on her own. Surely if less independent she shouldn’t be driving so why the independent drive?

Really? FGS, blame the OP for trying to take care of her elderly mother.

Complain OP, the behaviour of the police was appalling.

My experiences with the police over the years have also left me with very little faith. Very elderly grandparent burgled, not treated as a crime. I received a caution for an offence which to this day I cannot understand, presumably some sort of motoring offence but they never stated what it was. Alone with 2 very small children, shocked as I'd done nothing wrong and surprise surprise no further action was taken.Really should have challenged it at the time. It does also seem that the police are going for the easy targets re covid contraventions, no consistency whatsoever.

The outbuilding doesn’t have a separate address and is very clearly part of the main house. It was the garage which had a drive that was coming off one road while the front door to the house is pointing at the other road as it’s a corner plot. It’s absolutely not a separate home, it’s a normal sized double garage. It’s painted the same colour as our house, it’s hard to describe without photos but as soon as the police saw inside it’s pretty bloody obvious that it’s not the kind of place a tourist would want to stay! It’s still a total building site and we were sleeping in air beds and sleeping bags.

DM doesn’t drive at the moment so the drive isn’t for her - it’s more if we have visitors or if she needs care then they would need somewhere to park as no off road parking round here.

Apart from the (disgraceful) behaviour of the police is it possible the neighbours called them because they saw lights/people in a supposedly empty outhouse and thought maybe it was a burglary/squatters. It doesnt take away from the behaviour of the police, but maybe the neighbours were trying to be helpful rather than stitch you up (possible I am too nice)