Spent the day in a police cell, AIBU?

[VerySadVerySadAndAngry]

I have name changed for obvious reasons. But I post regularly here and would really appreciate some advice and support.

Yesterday was spent in a filthy dirty police cell, in custody. I have never in my life broken the law and I was scared. I was arrested and taken in because my father who has dementia and weird obsessional thoughts decided I had stolen all of his food.

Its been getting worse for months. He is aggressive and threatening, to the point he was trying to poke me with a garden fork. I'm actually quite scared at times because he tries to hit me, my husband, other people. I have been trying for over a year to get him into a home. Social workers will not listen. He has made allegations about his care staff, pub landlord, people in the pub, his friends, and his neighbours. he says he has people in his house, he sees things and talks to himself. He isn't washing or dressing appropriately, and he drinks for breakfast.

I am driven nuts with several calls a day. He bangs on the door and kicks my door up to 20 times a day. he stands by my car or in the garden so i can't get in or out of my house. He has been ringing the police every day for over a week. They arrive and he has gone out. He calls 999 and told them he is breathless so they blue light an ambulance, he is out.

But this is the final straw. I have written to his social worker, his GP, his solicitor and all of the neighbours. I have told the solicitor that any money left to me must be paid to charity. I hate this man. I can't bear to be anywhere near him. I have told social worker that I don't want to know where they place him if he comes out of hospital again, and I don't want to be informed if anything happens. Maybe he will get Covid-19? he certainly isn't social distancing, all of his wandering banging on doors and trips to A & E mean he more than likely is a candidate. I just can't cope anymore.

The police found my innocent and they have offered me support. So, why are the police now so supportive? well they have had so many dealings with my DF and his stolen stuff over the last year that they have written to SW x 3 making recommendations and they assured me this will never happen again. But I am still afraid. I went outside to look at the house to check to see if he had been discharged and nearly collapsed when I thought I heard a sound.

Am I cruel for not caring about him anymore? I feel so guilty and feel like I should care, but I'm just so frightened and I feel angry that he is doing this to me and my family.

Get a solicitor, OP.

Heads need to roll for this. Bastards.

I'm sorry that this has happened to you. I'd be considering lodging a complaint with whatever board that the GP is registered to about their lack of effort in looking after a patient of theirs. Surely they have a duty of care to your father, even if it is only to put the wheels in motion to get him admitted to a care home/suitable safe location where he can receive the care that he clearly needs?
I would also consider lodging a complaint with the police force (however you would do that, I'm sure there is information on this on whatever website your police force is part of) on their handling of the situation. They could have taken you in for questioning (not arresting you but into a room not a cell for a conversation) but they went all heavy handed for some reason and it was unnecessary, based on your past history with them and they with your father.

I would consider moving if I were you. Go somewhere that your father cannot follow you. You're under no obligation to look after him and you're selling your house to move to a nicer, calmer location.

Poor you!

I imagine the police will be more than helpful from now on OP because they’ve massively jumped the gun on arresting you and they’ll want this to go away before you make a complaint.

The only thing I can add is that in the current climate of where the elderly have to isolate and you can’t get food deliveries, theft of food would probably be taken very seriously as it would be a form of elder abuse tenfold whilst Covid 19 is going on. That’s the only logic I can think of for the police arresting you.

Because some people were questioning this, Ill start with I completely believe you OP. My husband spent the night in a cell based on similar malicious nonsense that fell apart once examined in any detail. Took him out of the house in the middle of the night. These things do happen, I wouldn't have believed it until I witnessed it myself.

You should also (as others have suggested) make it clear in writing to all relevant agencies that you no longer have any caring responsibility for your dad - you are done and you now have no contact whatsoever. Make it particularly clear to the solicitor with POA that you believe your dad is incapable and dangerous and it's on them to start managing your fathers affairs as the POA allows them to do for your dad's safety and everyone else's.

So sorry you are having to deal with this, can't imagine how tough it is.

@meemaw12
Really? And what makes you the authority on this? Were you there? Do you know the OP personally?

OP It is a bad situation that you are. Your father is ill even though this is causing him to do awful things. Nonetheless one person should not be left with the total care of the elderly and/or ill. It is always too much for one person no matter what the actual illness is.
I am another who could not get Social Services to do anything useful. Their input was ludicrous and they seemed to have no sense at all in the whole office
You have to be careful for your own sake. I soldiered on alone to the end and shortly thereafter I was diagnosed with a number of permanent incurable condition. I am now disabled.
There does not seem to me to be any sense in the NHS and SS creating more disabled people by their failure to give assistance when it is needed.

I was a police station duty rep for ages and I still work in law (no longer in crime) and there's nothing that is unbelievable here, unfortunately.

I wish it weren't true. if this had not happened to me I might question it too. My life has fallen apart over the last two years, and this is just way over what I ever expected would eventually happen. I just feel broken. I started at the form they gave me because even I feel like it cant be real, like I've slept through a nightmare. The form is called a MG4F I'd show you, but it has my personal details on. I really wish this doesn't happen to anyone else.
i couldn't even have a wee, or get dressed without someone watching me, how do you think that makes a person feel

As far as I am aware he is still in A and E

I'm extremely sorry you're in this position at all, but if he's still at the hospital I'd suggest the way out of this is to ring them immediately and make it very clear that you will not be offering any support at all if they discharge him. The fact you live next door means they'll have been even quicker than usual to list you as his carer, but the rules around discharge still stand and they won't be met if you stand firm

Everything else - calls to the solicitor to activate the POA, complaints to the police, whatever - can all follow later, but the priority is to keep yourself safe and I suspect this is the only way you'll be able to do it

OP I am so sorry you are going through this. I had very similar with elderly relative I had LPA for. I was accused of all sorts but fortunately I didn't get arrested.

I had all the advice of speak to SW tell the Doctor, insist something is done. I got no help. She was locking carers out so every time police had to turn out and break in, I can't even begin to think how much I spent having glass replaced. They all knew what was going on, I had the 999 service writing to the GP, the police phoning me to say I had to stop her phoning. I even had the special psychiatrist for the elderly telling me I needed to get her into a home.

It is a nightmare and no one realises what it is like and how poor the help is unless they have gone through it.

All I can say is I conned her into a home, only managed it as they were discharging her from hospital and she needed me to drive her home. I got her to the home and they coped with her until we got a deprivation of liberty order, they were so good as they were holding her against her will and she was phoning the police and asking for help and setting off fire alarms. Two years on after nasty visits, insults and abuse she has gone into another phase and is sweet and likes visits.

Good luck, I hope your authority is better than mine was.

I'm extremely sorry you're in this position at all, but if he's still at the hospital I'd suggest the way out of this is to ring them immediately and make it very clear that you will not be offering any support at all if they discharge him I tried that after one hospital stay, they put her in a taxi on a winter evening to go back to an empty house. They phoned to warn me she was on her way.

There's usually three sides to every story.
Your version.
The other sides version (in this case the police).
And what actually happened.

I know how the police complaints system works. You ring 101, you say you want to make a complaint about the police - they will ask for the date/time of incident/arrest/whatever it was. They ask if you know the names or not (not important if you have the details of an arrest as that will lead them directly to the officers).
I would complain. I genuinely would. They quite probably had access to this man's details if he was in hospital and not 'with it'. They should have looked that up before jumping the gun and arresting you for questioning.

I 100% believe you.

Sounds like grounds for two complaints: one for wrongful arrest and one for doing a search without a warrant. I did wonder how they would have got a warrant authorised in such a case.
In your position I think my anger would be more directed at the police, and other authorities than an elderly relative with dementia (and therefore a brain no longer functioning properly).

If OP's father was telling hcps his daughter stole his food and that was why he was in the state he was in then I can well I imagine the safeguarding referral raised and why the police would rock up there and take the actions they did.

The police are demented--searching your house for missing food? Like maybe you were hiding a Snickers bar under the bed? WTF? And putting you in a jail cell during the COVID epidemic???

Fuck a duck! They may be short staffed, but surely while questioning you in your house, they could have looked in his house and ok if his place did not have a lot of food in, they might have had a case but surely all the time the police had been called before...his name would have been known to them unless the whole squad were new? Even then it would be on computer "Old Jim up to his tricks again...". Yes, they have to investigate but bloody hell...

Can you get your MP involved?

No @Livingoncake I just have a fully functioning brain. HTH

OP is tired! She’s exhausted of all of this. She has written to her GP, SW, everyone she can think of. She doesn’t want to ask charities for support or AA or whatever else people have kindly suggested. She’s done.

@meemaw12

Deciding that another person's experience didn't happen (based on what?) isn't intelligent in this case, it's just arrogant. You are not some all-knowing god, FFS.

had to take off my boots and they were left outside of the cell. When the mental health person came to get me to talk to me I picked up my boots and put them back on.

The mental health person?

Sounds like the police cocked up massively there. I really hope you don’t let it lie.
Your father is abusive - I wouldn’t blame you for never seeing him again after what he’s put you through. It sounds like he’s ruining your life.

Can you move away (after this is over I mean) and not tell him where you’re going? I would.

I think what people don't always understand is that people with dementia can be quite convincing for a period of time. As an example when my aunt was being treated there was one occasion when I couldn't take her to her appointment with the psychiatrist who deals with dementia in our area. I spoke to the hospital and arranged hospital transport for her.

Later that day I got a phone call from a very irate Consultant Psychiatrist telling me off for letting her travel to the appointment by bus, well 2 buses in fact. He sanctimoniously told me he had arranged hospital transport for her so she would get home safely. I suggested he go back and check with the relevant department and he would see she had travelled to hospital by hospital transport which I had arranged with them. He said she was very clear she had travelled alone by bus, he didn't believe me but rang me back to confirm he had spoken to the woman who arranged the transport who had checked with the driver and in fact I was right. Now he was a man in his 50s, probably been a doctor for 30 years and was not only a psychiatrist but a psychiatrist who specialised in dementia and he was totally fooled by her. What chance does some young PC have of working out that this poor old vulnerable man wasn't actually being abused by the evil daughter?

The sad thing is some old people do get financially abused by family or carers and stealing his food would be abuse. If he had ignored it and the old man had ended up dead from malnutrition everyone would be screaming at him about how useless he was.

Re the warrant I imagine the police officer said he needed to check to see if the food was there and someone, maybe the OPs husband, didn't object. If he didn't have a warrant he wouldn't be able to continue unless there was consent whether that be assumed consent by no one objecting or someone saying OK go ahead.

I feel for the OP, I lived in fear of the same thing happening to me.

Dementia is an awful illness and I know from a friend's experience how hard it can be to get Social Services to fulfil their responsibilities - they're so overstretched they will leave/push everything they possibly can onto families - so I hope you get the help you need, OP.

However the police thing is just bizarre. Arrested on the word of a man with dementia known to police? House searched for something as difficult to prove ownership as food, without a warrant? Taken into custody rather than invited for interview? Filthy cell when they're disinfected between detainees as a matter of course, never mind in the middle of a pandemic? Allowed to keep the laces in your boots when you threatened self-ligature with said laces? As an ex-criminal justice system employee, there is lots here that is very strange. Were you abusive / violent / threatening to the police when they arrived at your home, to justify your detention in custody?

To reinforce @Puzzledandpissedoff’s post below, I suggest that you contact the PALS unit at the hospital or Trust to categorically state that the Discharge Team are to made aware that you are no longer his Carer, that you are not available to provide care for him & that you have a long carefully kept record of engagement with varying agencies about your father’s deteriorating condition & his need for an urgent MH Assessment.
State that should your father be discharged without a full MH assessment &/or be discharged to his home without any safeguarding &/or management plan, it will be entirely at the risk of the hospital managers & you will make an immediate formal complaint to the Chief Executive.
Tell on phone, follow up with email.

*As far as I am aware he is still in A and E

I'm extremely sorry you're in this position at all, but if he's still at the hospital I'd suggest the way out of this is to ring them immediately and make it very clear that you will not be offering any support at all if they discharge him. The fact you live next door means they'll have been even quicker than usual to list you as his carer, but the rules around discharge still stand and they won't be met if you stand firm

Everything else - calls to the solicitor to activate the POA, complaints to the police, whatever - can all follow later, but the priority is to keep yourself safe and I suspect this is the only way you'll be able to do it*