raistlin wrote:PaulT wrote:My impression of the Police is you phone up, get a crime number and then claim on your insurance and that is it.
Paul, this seems to be a widely held view and if you don't mind me saying so is a view held, in part, as the result of an urban myth. Unfortunately, Police officers, or more probably, help-desk (an oxymoron?) staff, are only human and might well try to filter out the less determined caller.
However, the Police are there to serve us all and, although we shouldn't have to, a little more forcefulness might indicate the absence of willingness of the caller to be fobbed off.
At the very least a request to be put through to the duty inspector, or a request for their name and the correct address of the Police station might serve to prove to the individual fielding the call that you are not prepared to be fobbed off.
I personally have come across the apparently lackadaisical attitude and have always been able to get my point across.
I find a polite request to speak to the duty inspector... immediately, makes my point.
Not wishing to belittle anyone's experiences here, just hoping that my experience might be of use to others
I said immpression but should be experience, although limited to my garage being broken in to and tools stolen and the side window of an LR Disco being smashed and the radio stolen.
In the latter case I took the car to an RAC windshield place where they were making a perspex window as they did not have the proper one until the next day. Received a call from the police - they wished to come down and take a statement which was quite a number of miles from their station and where the crime was committed. Two of them drove down - why TWO. They were keen as they had caught the person who did it and he would be in court the next day. I asked about claiming compensation and was told to contact my local station who told me that the investigating officer should have given me a form.
To digress a little more, in my professional capacity I was contacted by the local beat sergeant about trying to find a location on my employers site for a portable building they could use as an office. This was because if the officers had to do any paperwork (arrest some one etc) they had to return to the station several miles away. So time of the streets could be very limited, a cry echoed on some of these reality police programmes whereby the paperwork takes an eternity to the detriment of the public.
That apart Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play