Police - advice needed

[lumpsdumps]

I have a friend who was needing a police escort to her soon to be ex husband last night. We were told to have that in place as her husband has got non molestation out on her and banned her from seeing their child. It's a long story but basically they went to the States and he had her locked up in an American jail for assault, all charges were dropped. She now wants to retrieve her property with a police escort. This was arranged with solicitors last night and she called the police at 2.30pm yesterday and they confirmed their attendence at the address at 4.30pm last night. They still hadn't attended the property at 9pm. She returned home without approaching the property. She is now considering a formal complaint to them, do you think this is the right way to go?

Has she contacted the police to ask why they didn't turn up?

The police can attend in these circumstances in order to prevent a Breach of the Peace. Basically they are not attending to inforce anything, but simply to ensure that everything happens safely and peacefully. If your friends XH refuses to allow her to retrieve her property then the police will have no powers to make him do so, and she will have to leave.

This sort of job would take low priority over other things that happen in the course of a normal shift (thefts/burglaries assaults etc), and the chances are that something more urgent took the time of the officer to which it was allocated. Whilst I agree it's very bad manners of them not to have contatced your friend (even if it was later on in the shift), things can get pretty hectic, especially on a Friday evening.

Your friend needs to contact the station covering the area where her XH lives and re-arrange this. I think a formal complaint would be a little OTT at this stage, and may make it harder for her to enlist the help she's looking for from the Police.