In a victim’s shoes
I became a victim of crime recently. It’s not the first time, just like many people, My neighbours & I have been victims of petty crime over the years, most of which has gone unreported. It’s not even the first crime against my family this year.
This time I decided to report it.
An officer duly attended & took all the details plus a mini statement.
I didn’t expect the offenders to be caught. (I knew there was more than one because someone up the road saw them running off).
A few days later I received a letter from my local division. It offered condolences that I was a victim of crime, which is nice, provided me with a crime number which, it advised, should be passed on to my insurance company in the event of a claim, and spouted some general drivel from the victims’ charter. I was a little miffed that it spelled my name wrong, especially as I had gone to the effort of making sure the officer I dealt with had the spelling correct. The name of my street was mis-spelled also, but I guess as the postcode was correct it found me OK.
I didn’t hear any more about the crime from the officer dealing. I did get a letter from the local division though, which was nice. I expected it to provide me with the expected result, despite our investigations, blah blah…sorry to inform you…blah, blah…remains undetected….blah blah. Sadly, it didn’t update me because it was a copy, exact, of the first letter they sent. Perhaps they’d realised that my name & address were mis-spelled in the original letter &, distrusting the capabilities of my local post office, were re-sending to ensure it arrived.
Sadly, this didn’t appear to be the case as my name & address were still spelled incorrectly.
The next time I was at work I popped over to the guys who look after the crime reporting system & got them to correct my name & address. I also took the opportunity to note that apparently I’d been advised of the outcome of the investigation (I hadn’t), that house to house had proved negative (which was strange given that when I checked with the neighbours nobody had been approached by anyone from Her Majesty’s Finest), and that there was no CCTV (which was also strange given that there is a council CCTV & when my wife spoke to them nobody had requested the tapes be checked).
Now I’m not surprised that my crime wasn’t detected, most crimes aren’t. I’m a little miffed that, having worked for them for over 30 years, they can’t spell my name correctly. But mostly I’m annoyed that given they know I work for them & have access to the enquiries they record, that an officer is still prepared to ‘cuff’ the job with what is basically bullshit.
I’ve not received any final update from the officer or local division.
Funnily enough a few weeks later a neighbour became a victim of crime & the day after a PCSO knocked on the door asking if we’d seen or heard anything. I made sure she knew about the CCTV camera which covers one of the two entrances to our street so my neighbour has more of a chance of detection than I got.
I understand that people who come into contact with the police are dip-sampled to ascertain satisfaction levels, most members of the public would be in blissful ignorance of what the police had or hadn’t done or what they said they had or hadn’t done & whether the two matched up. I’m not sure my experience has done anything to enhance the reputation of my local force. I don’t suppose I’ll get dip-sampled now.
Incidentally, I think house to house enquiries are actually an almost total waste of time. In almost 30 years of doing them I would be struggling to think of a crime which was detected, after the event, from information given by a neighbour in house to house enquiries. I suspect anyone who has useful info about offenders either call police at the time or don’t want to admit not calling & therefore deny any knowledge.
pchawkeye says:
2100 Weaks, how could they mess that up.
On another note an armed robber was caught by way of house to house in my local town. He’d parked his get awy car ( which was his own car) in a neighbouring street and walked off to do the deed at a petrol station. Mr Curtain Twitcher was annoyed that this person had the afrontery to park in HIS road and duely noted the time, date and reg. number. And then did nothing until the knock on his door, the rest was history.Sometimes it does work.
July 5th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
ian c says:
Whilst filling my car with fuel at a Sainsbury petrol station, I witnessed a deception and called it in.
I happened to speak to a colleague in the Call handling dept and passed on the details along with updates till it was kicked up to the control room, NFA I guess.
Needless to say owing to resoucre levels, it was ‘Area trace, No search’
The following week an appeal in the local newspapers asked for information, so being the public spirted kind of person ‘you are’ I called (mop)and repeated the information. It then became clear that the reg number had not even been put through the box at the time. Done enough checks in the past to get that right!!!
Checking the boxes, I guess Sainsburys have CCTV – tick, You all know the rest.
Now left the UK for the other side of the world. Keep up the Blog and to the other buggers that read and do the ‘job’ you have my admiration.
July 5th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Hibbo says:
Well fancy that; lazy, useless, procedure following but do nothing police.
Do you start to see how the rest of us feel 200?
Clearly, you are proud of your time in the police, how do thing like this make you feel about the ’service’ now?
July 6th, 2009 at 9:49 am
joe says:
I guess this is an example of how attiudes in organisations are formed. We have a government which clearly doesn’t give a s**t about the people it is supposed to represent and is only concerned with doing what suits it’s own convenience. The attitude percolates down the through the ranks and manifests itself thus not only in the police service but most organisations you deal with these days!
July 6th, 2009 at 10:14 am
200 says:
Hibbo,
It’s a it of a leap from my story to a generalisation that the ‘police’ are lazy, useless, procedure following, & do nothing, but why let your bogotry get in the way of some facts.
And your comment ‘do you start to feel how the rest of us feel’ is just a little bit arrogant. Apart from being a police officer for 30 years, I’ve been a member of the public & a resident for about 50. It would be extremely blinkered of me not to know how members of the public feel, after all I am one & have lots of experience of being one.
If you’d paid any attention to my blog over the past 4 years you’d know exactly how I feel about the police service. You’d also know that whilst I am biased generally towards the role of officers, I am not afraid to point out the shortcomings of both individuals, & policies & procedures.
I spent my time doing something about it & offering what I considered to be the best service I could to people I dealt with, I still do that today after almost 30 years of frontline service. I’d be interested to know, apart from spending time slagging off the police on blogs, what you do?
July 6th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Fee says:
A while back, a few cars were broken into in our street. House-to-house enquiries got a really good description of the culprit from an old lady who spends about 14 hours a day looking out of her window. She hadn’t called the police becaused she doesn’t have a phone. The police recovered nothing, however, because he’d sold it on immediately. It didn’t get to court because she was the only witness, and although perfectly all right mentally, she gives the impression of being nuttier than squirrel poo. While disappointed, at least the victims felt as if the police gave a monkeys.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Alpha Tango says:
200
H2H, one of my best results! It was a shot in the dark, but if you make the effort..well.
And on the crime report you have to name occupants you have spoken to and their names- Home office rules and CRB/CMU should return the job to the investigating officer if he/she hasnt recorded such . It only takes a few mins of of your shift
My elderly parents have had several incidences with criminal damage on their home, it’s been 6 months since any update, I did warn them.
Pressures on officers are increasing , I always tried to update VOC on progress but will admit on occassions I didnt meet the criteria of updates each week etc, but always got names correct and made an effort to investigate. A further 20 or so jobs distracted me, but thats no excuse. Have attended a Burglary 3 days later and got it in the neck.
I dont blame MOP’s for being upset about police and the service they recieve.
Get someone’s name right at least it’s a good start.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
MRS MOP says:
Maybe this was their best effort and you have been given priveledged treatment in recognition of your dedication, commitment and loyalty to the police ’service’.
You have happily expressed your dissatisfaction here but what are you prepared to do about it. There are some serious issues which cannot be ignored i.e neglect of duty, blatent lying and dishonesty, breach of police code of conduct etc and it is your duty and responsibility to report the failings to PSD for further investigation.
I
July 6th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
copper bottom says:
lol- 200…you can please some of the people some of the time…
I asked another chap on another blog (that gave me a kicking) what he did… ‘lawyer’, he replied…
ha!
doctors- never see another after that Shipman bloke…
and that plumber that did me … all bent the lot of them…
banks???? dont get me going…
PSD?>>>> dont worry mrs MOP… with IPCC and pro-active undercover PSD test buyers- they get everyone in the end…
your job have those depts?
July 6th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
notsep says:
You’ll never get improvements in how procedures are carried out if you don’t go and point out that they are not being followed properly. Too many people just shrug their shoulders and let then get away with being sloppy.
I’ve worked in plenty of places where peoply get lazy and over a period of time, they start taking short cuts and missing steps in procedures, or being less than careful with handling data etc. Management needs to step in from time to time and clip them over the ear and put them back on track. It helps to be on the receiving end from time to time to see what service is like from the other side. I always found the biggest problem was that there was one “special gold pass” system for senior management, and normal service for the rest. Management could therefore never understand why the grockles were always grumbling about poor service!
July 7th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
200 says:
Mrs MOP, I like the way you assume I haven’t done anything about it. I don’t mention all the details for obvious reasons, but there are more ways to achieve satisfaction than running to PSD. personally, I wouldn’t piss on the PSD Dept if it was on fire, so it would have to be pretty serious for me to want to speak to them.
Notsep, interesting in view of your comment, that your latest blog entry is about you shrugging your shoulders & not bothering to report some grafitti in your area for the simple reason of not liking speaking to the council call centre.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
RocketDodger says:
Been there, done that!
Whilst working with CID got a phone call from the wife saying that we had been burgled. Attended my home and found that the playstation, slab of beer, a knife and a moneybox had been stolen. Phoned it in to my OWN POLICE STATION who declined to send a SOCO. (How naive to think that being a policeman I might actually get the job done properly!!)
The next morning, whilst dealing with some local scrote in custody, a SOCO who had heard about the Burglary, asked me if I would check out a playstation that had been recovered from a suspect. Lo and behold, it was mine.
Story is, scrote breaks into my house and steals the items listed above. He sits by the canal bank and gets shitfaced drinking my beer. He then goes to a local Indian Restaurant and orders ans eats a meal. On being presented with the bill he offers my playstation as payment. When this is refused he then stabs the proprieter with my knife !!
This all happens within hours of the burglary and he is subsequently charged. On the day, in Court, the CPS drop it to ‘handling’!!!!! The said shit walks and the whole process begins again.
Oh happy days, thank God I’m out
July 7th, 2009 at 8:51 pm