House trashed whilst I was at work

[Monkey987]

Just want to know what you would do in my situation.
A relative of mine (with mental health concerns) came to my house uninvited and smashed my window in an attempt to get in.
He also destroyed lots of other items in my garden and house.

He's done at least £1000 worth of damage.
I'm torn.
Am I being unreasonable to report them to the police for criminal damage so I can go through my insurance and claim?

Or do I pretend I have no idea how the damage happened.

The relative doesn't have a pot to p**s in. So no point asking them to fix it.

In my experience the police don't even prosecute sexual assault cases anymore.
I doubt they are interested in a smashed window etc

Report it to the police and ask they seek a statement of your neighbour. If the behaviour persists you then have a record that might help you seek an order to keep you safe (like a non molestation order). You can also ask the police to arrange for the Bobby van trust to come and check the security at your home.

If you genuinely believe you are in danger then you should report it. Have you received threats? Is the perpetrator likely to respond to police? You cannot expect your neighbour to lie about their identity or what they saw if asked.

If your neighbour confronted him then you do not have to report him. You must report to the Police asap. The Police will most likely ask your immediate neighbours if they saw/heard anything. Job done. Don’t delay phoning Police because you will be asked when you found it like this and why didn’t you phone Police immediately. I would also contact your Insurance with Crime Reference Number and get the damage fixed.
Hope things work out ok.

Great idea if you want to be done for wasting police time.

What if you had been home alone? Your dp must be worried about your safety.
Blocking someone won't stop them.

Your neighbour is very brave. I am not sure I would confront someone smashing a house up. I would have just called the police.

I don't really understand why you or your dp haven't. This person has been sofa surfing with you, used your hospitality and then breaks into your home and destroys your things. They will do it again? Then what? You already know they have serious issues. It could have been much much worse.

If he does get charged and go to court he could be given a mental health treatment requirement. He's very unlikely to go to prison at the moment unless he's already heavily convicted.
Police will door knock and your neighbour will tell them, you need the reference number to claim on your insurance. You've really got no option but to report and tell the truth.

One of my sister's kids has some fairly serious mental health issues, and has done the smashing shit up thing when they've been having a meltdown. Their support worker has advised her that if it happens again that she needs to call the police on them, as they're a danger to themself and others when they're in that state. You need to report it to the police, so you can get the crime number and do the insurance claim.

Did you take photos before you started clearing up?

Maybe because he hasn't broken in and destroyed their property?

The way this is going, sooner or later it will be a stranger's house and someone could end up hurt, or worse.

They were caught in the act, so your DP's parents/family need to face the facts.

Well, you could for example take out a restraining order against him. Then if he were to breach this, that would trigger police action next time. For that you would have to take on your own solicitor and get their advice. Again - might be harder to get in the absence of evidence of what he’s just done to your house and belongings. Could you install some cheap CCTV cameras of your own - Eufy doorbells don’t require a subscription and their cameras are also good value. It’s Amazon prime day on 8 July and their electronics are often heavily discounted. If you had footage of any further incidents that would help get a restraining order against him in place.

So you've had enough, you've tried to help this person, your DP will back you, but you are reluctant to report this person because your DPs relatives won't like it? That's not good reasoning, you know that don't you?
Your main concerns here are:
Your safety and wellbeing; the welfare of the person who smashed up your home; your DPs feelings. His judgy relatives shouldn't even be on your radar.

Report to police. How do you know this relative might not do something like this again? They might speak to this relative and they might get clinical support.

You need to report it.
And ring your insurance number with the crime reference number.

You just port the mortgage to the new property.

& what if he goes on & hurts someone? You need to report him.

Never. Ever. Lie. To your insurance provider.

What do you think would of happened to you had you been home and answered the door.

This is concerning for your safety and you should not underestimate the impact this could have on you. Please report to the police and then tell the truth to your insurance co.

Definitely report to the police. I would add up if it is worth making a claim in your home insurance. Making your home secure, windows and anything broken or stolen does tend to add up.
Depending on the size and how many windows he broke £1000 might not cover what you think it will cover.
Having a glazier replace just 1window could cost at least £2-300+
Check also that everything is still in place. I.e all jewellery or little things that are usually kept in a drawer or not on view are still there.

Reporting to the police is flagging a potentially dangerous person who could choose the wrong house or wrong person next time and either he will hurt someone or someone will hurt him.

You need the crime number to be able to get the insurance money. Just because you report the crime does not mean the police will do anything about it - in fact they probably won't if it was just vandalism.

Sounds like the person who did the damage needs help: by reporting the damage and your concerns about future damage (after all, you could repair all the damage and the person will just do this again - which is what an insurance company will be worried about too) you could be prompting social services or other care systems to actually take steps to give this person the help they need. There's never anything nice about someone being sectioned or treated if they don't wish to be treated, but it's far better to have them get that care before they do something that will harm themselves or someone else far worse than the damage they have already caused. You mentioned they smashed a window? That could have resulted in a horrific accident or harm to that person - a single cut in the wrong place and they would bleed out.

I would urge you to report the damage, take pictures of everything, get yourself some cheap video cameras so you can get video evidence next time if anything is needed, install a place either in your house to keep valuables, or keep very important ones in a safety deposit box in a bank, and report this behaviour to whichever social services/mental health etc etc would need to know about this so the person in question can get help before something worse happens.

I agree with this post. Restraining order is easy to obtain if someone is causing physical damage. And it's so easy to get video cameras etc these days for home security. Hell, you can even use a baby monitor.

No one is going to get "done" for wasting time: do you really think this is the first time police have had to deal with a family member reporting criminal damage while also being very worried about causing that family member to get into trouble??? This happens all the the time! Police and their social outreach and victim support people are trained to help with these situations. They often have to deal with people who are reporting a crime but very scared or worried about what happens if the say who did it. Don't add to their worries like this - it's not kind, and it betrays the fact that you don't really know what you are talking about. Besides which, why would you want to be unkind in a situation like this??

Make a referral to social services or MH services, which will be taken more seriously coming from police than from you. In areas with stretched services, things escalating to the point there's police involvement is often the only way the unwell person can get any help.

It's not he-said-she-said. There's a witness with camera footage!

If they go to speak to him and he's behaving erratically in public, they can detain him under the MH act and take him to hospital for psychiatric assessment.

The siblings are happy to remain in denial because they aren't being targeted and they don't want to have to deal with this relation or his problems at all. The only way they can do that without feeling guilty is to tell themselves he's fine/it doesn't matter etc.

So report it then and by doing so you will be protecting yourselves, good luck x

This is your partner’s relative. It sounds like your partner is not offering to pay for the damage (has he offered?) so then report it and make an insurance claim. It will be helpful to have the report with the police in case the relative keeps doing this and you need a restraining order- evidence of a prior break in will be helpful then.

How is this life changing?

This person made a choice to destroy your property. Call the police and make an insurance claim. Stop overthinking this.