General Chat

I have just been interviewed by the police doing house-to-house enquiries because a horrible crime happened in my street. I told them I had seen or heard nothing (to be honest, if I had I would have gone to help). Despite my seeing nothing, they still had to waste 20 minutes of their precious time, asking me a whole list of questions from their questionaire. They both had to fill in a copy of the same form, both writing down my same answers to each question. They had to ask me completely irrelevant questions, such as my height, birthplace, etc. Such a ridiculous waste of time-and paper-it is no wonder people complain that the police are slow to respond! I have had a lot of dealings with my local police (not as a criminal, I hasten to add!) and have found each and every officer to be highly professional and courteous, yet their hands are tied by this ridiculous beurocracy! Sorry, I don't often get political on here--but it's the first time I've seen this first-hand, and it really frustrated me, especially as I know they have a serious crime to solve!

Hi Sally, I know what you mean, my self and my husband witnessed a hit and run, lukily the car that got hit was parked up and empty, but it was still damage to some ones property, we spent a couple of hours with the police, a few days later I was talking to the person who's car got hit, and guess what, the police didn't even tell them that they had a name and address of the person who did the damage, so I let the person know that I had witnessed the accident and that it had been reported to the police, and that they could contact the police for confirmation of the accident for the insurance purpose. How about that for a waste of time? Bev

Hi Bev, It's difficult to know whether your case was caused by one lax copper, or maybe just so much form-filling that they can't keep track! I think it also probably depends on your area--I'm very lucky where I am. My uncle went missing six years ago and the local police were unbelievable, going above and beyond the call several times. However, when my uncle was found in another county, their local police were diabolical. Made me realise how lucky we had been. It upsets me to think that this horrible incident happened in my own street yet, instead of talking to people who actually saw something, they are having to waste time with people like me, who clearly didn't!