Theft and perpetrator caught on CCTV

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We had some property stolen and the perpetrator looked at our CCTV camera, we shared it on FB and a few people identified him. Police have given it a crime number but won't take any action unless someone is prepared to come forward and identify him, we don't know the man so can't do it ourselves. As we live in a small village and perpetrator lives in the village it's a big ask for someone to come forward. Is this right though? can the police refuse to follow up even though we've got the person on CCTV?

Well I guess the police cannot do a house to house search for him so I would understand their need for assistance. Can no one identify him? House to house survey conducted by you? Don’t expect the police to be interested in doing much though.

We know where he lives in the village, that's not the problem, we don't know him personally ourselves, but a couple of people do know him and said it looked like him.

You must have read that the police don’t investigate burglaries now. They will just ask you if you were insured. If you are, that’s all they care about. It’s not the service we expect. But it’s the low level of service we get.

You need to be persistent and complain.

The police need an ID statement from someone that knows him and can say "the male in the cctv of 20 smith st timed at 20:30 hours on 12th feb 2020 is Joe Bloggs of 36 Smith St. I know it is him because I go to the pub with him every Thursday night and have known him for 15 years" or something to that effect. The person also needs to be prepared to stand up in court too. The thief will know who identified them. A lot of people will say who it is but won't be prepared to go to court. Without the formal ID police are stuck

So by this logic ... you can commit a crime somewhere no one knows you despite being on camera and it’ll never be investigated not will you be brought to justice ..... oh wait that’s real life...

Storsh49 that's our problem, we asked the person who ID him knowing it was a big ask in a village and of course they backtracked.

So there's nothing to stop this kind of thieving really.

Have you not listened to the news recently? It’s been widely reported. Police forces are not investigating burglaries. Of course people are getting away with it.

My summer house was burnt down. The person who did it was identified. What happened? The police cane round and said it was too much work to deal with it as under 16s were involved and they would have to give evidence in court. They really couldn’t have cared less! I would not expect any low level burglary to be followed up.

And they wonder why vigilante groups start up. It’s like the Wild West in Northamptonshire.

I think they're just fucking you off. You can give them a statement saying someone has identified them and who it is.

Police officer here. The rumour of who it is would never be enough to reach the charging standard or a realistic prospect of conviction in court in the absence of an admission. It seems annoying, and potentially if it was one of my team I'd be asking them to interview the suspect without the ID statement, and play the CCTV in interview and see if he admitted it, however it would be unlikely to meet the threshold for charge without it. The solicitor would clock straight away that the I'd statement was missing and would probably advise the suspect to go No Comment and you'd never reach that required threshold. What was the value of the theft?

How much was the property worth? Thames Valley Police won't even investigate burglaries £250 or less

I can’t get past having someone’s face on camera isn’t enough when you can (presumably) see enough facial features identifying the prick in the first place. .... do criminals have major plastic surgery hours after every robbery/crime????? It would satisfy the police if you were caught speeding.... or is it because that crime has a financial penalty and robbery doesn’t ......

Desmond2016 thank you for explanation, yes property worth less than £250 so we will suck it up, it is part of ongoing harassment we've suffered but never enough to do anything about so it's extremely frustrating.

We were given a crime number though.

The crime number is so that you can claim
from insurance.

I also would advise you to burglar proof your house. I would take the harassment further but of course we all know that gets ignored too. How did the burglar get in? Take more precautions to avoid this. What have you done to protect your belongings?

I don't want to go into too much detail in case I out myself as the harassment is well known in our village, the property was something on the outside of the house, our house has CCTV around it as we run a business from home too. (Fat lot of good CCTV is though). The ongoing harassment we've had no joy with the police and we are, and have been taking steps legally to deal with it, which has cost us a lot of ££££.

Oh dear! Move house? I know that would feel like you will have bees forced out but I would think I could be happier somewhere else. Is all this effort worth it?