Second event occured some years later when after a pleasant weekend away with my partner and our two children, we returned to find our house cleaned out, and I mean cleaned out, they had stolen everything we owned, and that even included some of the furniture. I must thank our neighbours for helping give my family somewhere warm to stay while I waited two hours for the police to arrive.
When they finally came, their primary objective was to fill in the details on a form for insurance purposes. While I was of course keen to ensure our losses were recorded, I also kept telling her about the used cigarette ends on the floor. She seemed convinced I must have dragged them in on my shoes, even though none of us smokes and they were dry, complete with ash. Anyhow, she finally agreed a forensics person would come out following morning. Next morning, I waited until midday, faced constantly with the losses we had experienced while my family stayed in a local hotel. I rang the police up, only to be told that “…maybe you should clean up and get on with your lives, maybe you should move on…” Amazing, I thought, do they want to catch criminals or not?
Well, a forensics “expert” finally arrived, and bagged up the cigarette ends. She also took fingerprints and disappeared. I heard no more, until a year later when the police knocked at the door of our new home (we couldn’t wait to get away from the old house after that). What could it be? Has someone had an accident? No, it was explained that I may be required as a witness at a court case the following day in Hove. Following day, I called the number I had been given and got through to some policewoman I forget the name of, who explained the cigarette ends had found a forensic match, yep, she seemed just as surprised as anyone else at that, and that the case was starting again, but they didn’t think I would be required. A few days later she phoned again and explained the case had ended with a hung jury.
The case resumed some months later, although this time I had to go through the awful experience of driving all the way to Brighton, and being discredited by his lawyer in the witness box. I don’t necessarily mean he was awful, simply that he was keen to press home the fact of how I could remember all the facts a year after the event, which I guess is a common tactic if cases take this long to be resolved. The final nail in the coffin came when the police admitted the cigarette end evidence had become damaged during storage and thus, a hung jury once again and BB was free to go. The police were very apologetic afterwards, and the forensic expert unhelpfully told me that she photographs every single crime scene from now on, before picking the evidence up. Interestingly, the police also told me the defence lawyer hated the defendant himself, and was fairly convinced of his guilt.
So, two cases so far where the police let me down. I’ll bet I’m not alone out there with my experiences. There must be a lot of bodged cases, taxing us all in terms of time and money. Do the Police still do a good job? Or have they lost sight of their original motto, to “protect and serve” the general public? You can probably guess where I stand in the equation. If the police force was abolished, 95% of us would carry on in the same law-abiding way as we did before, and be free to form vigilante groups or hire hitmen to deal with the 5% who don’t.
Next time, I’ll let you know how, as a pedestrian in a dangerous driving charge, I ended up being arrested myself…
