I've tried to keep this short but not so short that I end up drip feeding in response to questions...
I am a disabled pensioner. One Friday a few weeks ago I invited a local builder to quote for various works to my home. He was well spoken, polite, charming and gentle and I liked him instantly. After discussing the work I needed we fell into friendly chatting until he said he had to dash as he had to find himself a bed for the night. A week previously he had left his wife and small children after discovering she was having an affair, and intended to rent a room in a house (which here costs about £150 a week) but as a stop-gap he had been obliged to pay £100 a night to stay in a local hotel. The hotel was fully booked for the weekend (we are a holiday town) so he had to find somewhere to sleep that night.
He asked if I had a spare room or knew someone who did, and I replied that I do take in lodgers but the only unoccupied bedroom was completely empty, awaiting new furniture for a lodger who was moving in in two weeks' time. He said the £100+ a night for a hotel was crippling his finances, as he was still paying the mortgage on the family home, so he'd even sleep on a floor for a night or two until a bed could be obtained. He'd give me £200 a week to stay until my new lodger moved in, plus he would perform all the little 'handyman' jobs (which have been accumulating for ages) free of charge whilst he was here (though he'd still charge me for the big jobs.) He scrabbled around in his bag for proof of ID to show me, and also handed me his passport, the photo and name and age all matched what he had told me. I phoned a local secondhand shop and a bed was delivered that evening. The builder had to go out to do a few more quotes then returned, exhausted, and flopped into bed, promising to go to the cash machine next day to get the rent money. Then next day there was a problem with his card (wife had got it stopped or something) and he could not take money out but he'd soon sort it and pay me the £200 as promised. He gave me his passport to retain as security.
He was lovely and helpful, friendly and polite for two days, we got on well and had lots of chats and laughs, and then suddenly he changed, like Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde. He started walking into my private rooms, including my bedroom when I was in bed, without even knocking, sitting down audaciously and behaving however he liked. He helped himself to my food and openly eavesdropped on all my phone calls, commenting on what I said and did. He was rude, aggressive and repeatedly told me I was a horrible person and that he despised me. He announced that he had no intention of paying me a penny or doing any more handyman tasks - no reason given. Naturally I told him that he must leave my house but he refused and said he'd stay as long as he liked. His body language made me feel scared and physically intimidated: I am a 5ft 3in female disabled pensioner, he is 35, 6ft 3 male, and a fit, muscle-bound builder. I felt extremely vulnerable and frightened. I have a lodger - a young lady - but she was out for the day.
I dialled 999 but the call handler refused to send anyone "until he actually hits you. Then you should call us back." I kept on saying that I was a vulnerable disabled pensioner but this changed nothing. He became very angry at me for calling the police on him and smugly smiled at their refusal to help me. I became so scared of him that an hour or so later I left him in the house and went straight to the police station in person, trembling and crying all the way.
I gave the officer on the front desk a brief outline of my problem and gave them his full name and date of birth, which I got off his passport. I asked if a bobby or two could come to my home and just be present for a few minutes whilst I told the man to leave. He could see my age and disability, yet he refused to send anyone! He said it was a civil matter and to evict a tenant I would have to apply to the County Court for an eviction order, which could take months. I explained that the man was not a tenant or a lodger: we had signed no agreement and he had paid me no rent. The policeman said we had a 'verbal agreement' which was 'legally binding.' I repeatedly told him that the man was stealing my food, invading my privacy, saying really nasty things about me and physically intimidating me. I was not asking them to arrest him but simply stand there silently when I told him to leave. I felt that was all that would be needed to make him go quietly. I kept on and on pleading, and broke down sobbing and told the officer that I was too scared to go home, but he just dug his heels in. 'No criminal offence had been committed", so there was nothing the police could do. I had invited the man into my house voluntarily so it was not a police matter. I asked him if this applied to house-cleaners, electricians, district nurses, estate agents and meter-readers and he said YES, if any of them chose to stay and refused to leave it would take a civil court action to get them out. To say I was gobsmacked would be a massive understatement! Our conversation was heard by the other desk officers who were watching and listening and none of them intervened so he must have been correct in what he told me.
He finished up by telling me that my predicament was entirely my own fault: I had been a fool to let him stay. I reminded him that every single day, all over the UK hotels, b&bs, guest houses, AirBnBs, youth hostels and even hospitals allow complete strangers to stay the night. Are they all stupid and foolhardy, and are all the guests entitled to stay forever unless the owner takes them to court? In my young days I travelled the whole UK and have knocked on the door of many a B&B with a 'vacancies' sign in the window, been admitted without any ID and shown to a room, then paid when I was leaving.
When I left the police station, my burning sense of injustice was further inflamed by recalling a Youtube video I had recently seen in which five police officers (of the neighbouring force to mine) were sent to arrest Darren Brady, a harmless, middle-aged man, for re-tweeting a humorous political meme, because an unnamed person called the police to say he found the meme 'offensive'. How come being accused by a random stranger of being 'offensive' on Twitter warrants five officers being tied up for an hour and a man being arrested, handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police van then a police cell (hours later he was released without charge) whilst my being genuinely terrified of a man actually in my home was a 'civil matter'?
In the end my lodger and me got the man out ourselves, by a trick. He bombarded us both with abusive texts for about a week. After he'd gone I discovered that since April he'd scammed and robbed several people in my town, they had all reported him to the police, who said that they could do nothing as they 'could not find him.' Yet when I walked into the station and told them his name and d.o.b. and told them he was at my house, they would not come!
Should I process a complaint that the police failed to help a frightened disabled pensioner lady in distress? Is there any point in complaining if that really is the law as it stands? Or should I be lobbying my MP to get the law changed?
I don't feel that I can just let this pass. It could happen to some other poor lady. What do you think I should do?