Copied from WYIOC thread for exposure

At around 2030-2100 last night some thieving scum buckets entered my house, they stole various small items from my back room including my briefcase with all my project work for the last six months.

They also took my house keys and locked the back door on there departure, beleive this or not all this while I sat in the front room, It had only been around 30 40 mins since I was last in the kitchen (through back room) I never heard a single thing. To be honest I would never of known they had been in there but I was just on my way out to my girlfriends and when i tried to get out of the door it was locked, initially I was frustrated because I could not find the keys to unlock it, knowing fullwell they were in the kitchen!!

I then looked out of the kitchen window to find the front end of my subaru was missing, I dropped everything ran to the back window, yes low and behold the car had gone from the garden. I tore through the house out of the front door and ran through the ginnel to the back of the house. I was full of anger and I mean anger pure rage, and there she was 300 yards down the back street abandoned with doors open and lights still on, thank god for CAT 1's and some of my own electrickery nuff said. Thank god i never leave car keys accessable in the house

The car was in a right state all the interior dash pulled to bits to get away with my kenwood, the rear seats pulled out to try and get to rear speakers (complete tw@ts) sealed rear on the jdm wrx..

In a last resort to not leave completely unsatisfied with there thieving scum rat infested life styles, they launched a brick through the front winscreen,and snapped the full centre badge out of the grill..

Yeah I know the car still here but no consolation trust me, I am furious, and left with a huge mess to sort out including house locks.

Police response..

Bare in my mind my house was left unlocked at the front while I stood in a pitch black alley with a car, thiefs could of returned at any time either to house that was unlocked and they have the keys for, or to car where i Stood alone with iron bar.
Initially the police came within the hour 50 mins they were really understanding called crime scene out to print the house then they call a company out to tow car to there soco premises, for drying off and full fingerprint and dna test's, I was in awe at this and there efforts to catch the culprits.

Then when the police organised recovery guy comes out he starts to tell me what i will be charged for the police's request £150 tow £150 for return plus £12 a day for any duration while they had the car in storage.

I obviously said no no no, This is not for the victim to pay its a police request to aid in the capture of the criminals, The police walked away came back after speaking to the sargent and said sorry your liable for all cost's. I said well forget it I am not paying those cost's at your request, At no point did they tell me this would be at my cost they were actually as shocked as i was when this came to light. I told them I could not and would not pay and asked if I could now recover my vehicle, to which replied there seems no point to delay it any futher if I was not accepting the cost's

I jumped in the car and got it pushed back to my house and in the garden,

The police then knocked on my door told me they were taking the car under instruction of there duty sargant, and if I refused I would be arrested. I said you can gladly take the car if you sign to say you will cover all cost involved, they then said you will do as requested and if the sargent has to come out you will be arrested.

I told them if you arrest me my daughter will be left in the house alone the criminals have got keys to my home and the car is not yet secured, this fell on death ears andy said once again they need the car and it would be at my cost.

At this stage I asked a witness to listen to what was being said by the police officers and explained the predicament about house security my daughters well being, and the fact that I could not pay what was being asked and ultimately would of ended up in court for non payment of the recovery guys fee's (at the police request 300yds from home to elsmall) and in addition an ever growing £12 a day till it was rectified, After the I asked the witness to listen to what the police where preaching to me, and his response that this was completely unjust, given i am the victim, the police officers once again walked away to speak to there sargent on ther return thay said its not an issue and they no longer require my car or compliance, This is the sugar coated version the police really did speak to my like dirt.. sorry for the grammar know its hard to get through but am still furious......

The pics

 

i cant believe that mate.... so sorry to here it and the way you was treeted is discusting!

hope it all gets sorted for you

 

This Country is a joke !
They most likely want that money from you to pay the criminals their compensation when they sue you for chipping a nail when throwing the brick at your window.
Alternatively the money could be well spent by the courts re-habilitating these repeat criminals by taking them on adventure holidays and days out.

Seriously though.
Sorry to hear about your pride and joy being taken, I am always relieved to wake up in the morning and still see it on the drive. (only had it 6 days but in 6 years I bet I'll still be the same). I'm looking at getting a discklok for mine to accompany the standard alarm. I doubt it would have made much difference but..

as another concerned owner, is there anything that can be learnt from this awful event?

What (legal) security devices can people reccommend adding to the car?

(preparing for silly answers)

 

Hi Mark and thanks for the comments.

I have a XXXX cat one system fiited to mine, in adition to this a coule of self wired electrickery bits can't go into detail obviously but there are certain systems you can bypass with switches buttons toggle swithches your choices are endless and where you hide them is upto you.

It obviously did not stop them getting the car pushed away from the house but guess they got tired of pushing and when they realised it would not start, started to destroy it... complete ******* still fuming at every aspect of this, from thieves to police involvment god help us!!!!!

Mick

 

unlucky mate, no how you feel, mine was nicked this week completly, doubt i'll ever see it again. with all the undeclared mods done to it i've lost thousands. but i can understand that alot of the stuff done to your car is just for fun, with the brick and everything. at least i no wit mine they've taken it for a purpose

 

Sorry to hear about what happened mate.

Ben

 

A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Sounds like the sergeant giving the advice only has a little!

Let me explain a few things,

Recovery costs the police £150 plus £12 per day storage so if you add up all the stolen/abandoned/seized whatever cars that are recovered, you can see that's an awful lot of tax payers wonga

They are supposed to recover your car for examining on the (remote) chance there is any evidence inside it. They have a power to seize it to do this as it is evidence of an offence (this is where the threats came in, it would be looked on as obstruction to prevent them from taking it).

What SHOULD happen is that you are informed they are taking it and told that you will be billed but that this is covered under insurance and wont actually cost you a penny (send the bill on)

However, should you refuse to let it go for any reason (such as not making an insurance claim), they CAN still take it but then they are excercising powers of seizure and should be responsible for the costs.

You are the victim here and were treated wrongly. Put a fekin complaint in or the same ****e will happen to someone else.

My 2 penneth.

 

Speak to a uniformed Inspector and make a formal complaint. Its up to you whether you let the complaint fizzle out/be dealt with informally; but if it starts out as a formal complaint then Im certain that it will be addressed.

Simon

 

You have to complain. I had problems with Durham and Met police force. They have to take complaints seriously and address them. have had written apology from Durham, Met will also eventually also apologise. I know litle compensation but they really should not be able to get away with this. Bad enough as is, but the police really are taking the mick!

 

Sorry what happened Mick. I know it doesn't compare what has been done to you, but when someone nicked the spoiler of my car I didn't even bother telling the police. After a few months a spotted my spoiler on the theif's car and nicked it back.
As for the security issue, get a nice cuddly Rotweiler and leave it starved through the night in your Scooby!
Maybe you should post your where abouts, maybe the theifs hit more than one house that week.

 

Also if you where to pay the towing and storage fees, I think you are better off hiring a professional detective.

 

Oh mate don't you wish you could catch the f------ ***** and make them pay for what they done the country has gone to the dogs, i'm fuming and its not even my car hope you get something sorted. Keep us posted

 

This sounds like a joke, but i was there and i can tell you it wasn't. The police are ment to be a special breed not job worths, if i ever have the same bad luck the police will be the last people i ring, i cant afford it on top of all the pole tax i pay, for some reason!

 

Castleford West Yorkshire but dont bother the police coz there all asleep shhhhhhhh

P.s any body with some cheep interior bits to fix my brothers car i would be greatfull

 

Whereabouts in Cas do you come from, Mick? PM me, please.

 

What a F@cking joke the Police are these days. I'd complain mate, they didn't give you all the information which made you fear for your daughters safety. Thanks to new Labour the Criminals rule this country, and victims are victimised twice. Once by the criminal, and then by the Police.

On another note, just pleased that they didn't decide to walk into your living room and beat you to death for your car keys. Bad luck anyway. Shame the Police won't catch the f*ckers though. That cost money

 

My mate had a similar problem.

His sapphire cosworth was stolen and the low life scum only made it about 1/2 mile round the corner before they wrapped it up into a curb snapping all the wishbones and rendering it undriveable.

We found the car later that night and explained to the owner of the house that the car had been dumped outside that the car was ours (of which we had proof) and had been stolen. We reported it to the police and they came and looked at it and said they were happy to leave us to deal with the car. Which we werent too happy about as they made no attempt to further investigate the theft. We then asked if it was ok to leave the car outside the house till the morning so that we could arrange for its collection to which the owner of the house accepted.

less than 1 hour later we were contacted by the police (different police to before) to say they had found the car dumped and had towed it away to their compound because of a compliant from a local resident.

We asked which one ? as we had cleared with the owner of the house to which it was outside that we could leave it there. But they wouldnt tell us

Anyway when we came to collect the car we were hit with a similar fee of £120ish pounds to which we refused as we haddent asked for the car to be moved. To which the police replied that if we didnt pay we would be taken to court.

Anyway cut a long story short my friends parents got their solicitor involved, they sent a letter out to the police and the contracted recovery service and low and behold we got a reply saying we were no longer elligable for any costs!

 

III had the same two years ago they broke into my house when we were out. First through the front but couldn't get in, so the idiots went around the back BIG mistake both my bull breeds were waiting for them. Blood, lots of it and 1xtraineer, 1xfinger, and a lot of bits of clothing........Job done go to the hospital wait for chewed up victims and hey presto job done. Oh no not solihull old bill, where are your danger dogs signs.....? your dogs will have to be taken away and you may be charged, and as it was raining they could do nothing about finger prints. All this on a friday night.. the finger print officer came on the tyesday and said because we had shut all the forced windows and doors(mid december) she couldsn't do anything. I offered the two bafoon coppers to try and take the dogs(not likely)was then tild i would be arrested if i did not do as i was f***ing told (nice) after a lot of heated convo they called the idiot at the station who said to leave the matter for now, but to warn me that the offender if caught could make a complaint against my dogs and they could be distroyed........ Where the hell is the justice in that?

 

If your dogs were out in the garden without dangerous dogs signs, then you are liable. If they were in your back kitchen when the burglars broke in, then you're not. That's the law.

 

OMG, I feel totally gutted for you.

I also feel very pissed off but I dont know who with more, the thieving scum or the police.

Totally gob smacked.

 

I had a car stolen about 10 years ago too. The police asked me when I reported it missing if I'd want them to recover it I said no because I had RAC cover for that. 6 hours later they call me up and say that they've found it and they're recovering it I told them that I didn't want it recovered but they weren't listening and said they were recovering at their cost so that they could fingerprint it. I couldn't see my car 'til the following morning and they tried billing me for recovering it (£150 ten years ago) I was an apprentice at the time and that was a week and a halfs wages so I told them were to go but they weren't shifting and said that I couldn't have it back 'til I'd paid the £150 Luckily my Mum is a force to be reckoned with and made them see it her way and I got my car back

Good luck getting it sorted and I hope they don't **** you about like they tried with me.

 

Here, once again, we have examples of the police NOT doing the job they are paid for, but going after law -abiding members of the public who have committed no offence. I'm surprised none of the VICTIMS in any of these cases was threatened with, or received, a public order offence threat, or fine

It's much easier, you see, THOSE people are unlikely to resist arrest, get legal aid, or cause the police any REAL problems.

When I was at school, this sort of attitude was known as "bullying".

I've said it before: the police in this country are now no more than bullies, enforcers, and auxilliary tax gatherers for whichever government pays them

The moral of this story: trust the coppers about as far as you could chuck a carload

Alcazar

 

Get a grip you f***wit and read my post. This is a mis-interpretation of the policy. Nothing more. The Sergeant needs raking over the coals as it was his advice to the coppers at the house but the top and bottom of it is that they are trying to detect the crime. Just not pay for each car when in 90% of cases the insurance company will. The alternative is to come around and not give a **** and don't examine the car.

Read between the lines before getting back on that tall horse

 

Who are you calling f*ckwit, wankbreak?

Oooooooh, sorry, you're probably one OF those bullies, enforcers, and tax gatherers I mentioned. Better not swear, I might be arrested on a public order offence.

Did you run round the playground at school threatening to "tell" too?

Back to sleep, you're up too early to play with me, matey.

Oh, and before you go, read a few of the other posts...........this isn't a one-off, or an over officious sargeant, it's the norm!

Alcazar

 

Oh silly me, of course you are completely right and all 140,000 police are bullies. You're not an ethnic are you? Cos they're all ............hmmmmm Tarring all of a group with one brush. Nah, not for me thanks, i'll take each as I find em but obviously you know better

 

Nope, I don't know "better".

What I DO know is my own, my families' and my friends' real-life dealings with the police, and NONE of it would be owt for the cops to write home about.

Add to that the experiences of people on here.................

Sorry if that's not what you want to hear. Welcome to the real world

Alcazar

 

Sorry to hear about this Mick. It really makes your guts turn when you work hard and scum think that they can come into YOUR house and take YOUR keys to YOUR property. I hope you get everything sorted. Channel your aggression into doing something positive for yourself - complain.

I really would advise you to write everything down when you are a bit calmer and get your witness to make a statement (signed and dated with dates and times and if you got it the names and numbers of the officers involved). Copy it and send it with your complaint. When you send your complaint you need to copy it to the local newspaper (and maybe even the local TV news) and your MP and make sure that you write "CC Castleford Post (or whatever it's name is) and Your MP's name" at the foot of the letter. This will tell the Police that you are serious and will get help from your representative in parliament. It will also tell the MP that you have involved the local news and they know that this will provoke a lot of public support for you the victim. As MPs don't like bad press and enjoy good press on any bandwagon they jump on you will at least get good support from him/her.

In your letter of complaint you need to highlight that it was the job of the Police SERVICE (I use that term very loosely) to inform you that these costs were recoverable from your insurer and that you should speak to them on the 24hour helpline (your insuruers may have even moved the car on your behalf). They should have told you this because they are supposed to know what they are doing and have lots of experience, whereas (I hope) this doesn't happen to you frequently and are therefore in a position of ignorance through lack of knowledge. You need to stress that that the Police continued to inflame the situation by threatening arrest when this would have left your daughter vulnerable at home when the tossers had your house keys, and that you were made to feel like the criminal and not the victim. The Police are supoosed to have good people skills but from this you wouldn't think so.

Unless we complain formally nothing will ever change. I know that not everyone gets the outcome that they want and this creates the 'whats the point' feelings, but unless we complain you will get nowhere and that anger will just fester like a sore inside you.

Ten years ago my Metro Gti 16v (12 months old and my pride and joy at the time) was nicked and the tossers hit a BMW when they lost it on a bend. The copper that dealt with me did advise me about the costs and assured me the insurance would pick up the tab which they did. He also advised me to make a note of any uninsurable losses as we could pursue the tosser for the losses (which we got back - a tidy £600). Top job copper. I was lucky because my mate witnessed the crash (which wrote off the car and the beemer) and recognised my car / reg plate. He chased the driver who did a runner (a 14year old kid) and kept hold of him until the Police turned up. The kid did try to hit my mate. My mate said the kid fell over, and as a result sustained a broken jaw and cheekbone and 3 broken ribs in the struggle and ended up in hospital for a few days.

enough of me - good luck with it mate.

 

oh mate that makes me sick... sorry to hear that.
a friend of mine had similar dealing with the police when he was nearly carjacked at a set of lights.

cut a long story short the theiving scum got the keys but he put up a fight not to let them get the car. when the police came they recovered car and later he was told he had to pay for the recovery. oh and that they wouldn't release the car unless he paid.

the police had damaged his alloys and he is now writing to and from the independent inspections for them to repair the damages and to get back the charges for his recovery as he insisted the AA would recover the car and that he was covered.

 

My dogs are not dangerous! If they were a dangerous breed, then they would be outlawed, THATS THE LAW. They were within the boundries of my property, but what the old bill class as that is anyones guess. But then again Bubba, it seems the law is in force when it is suitable, i mean next time i'll lock up my dogs.They can hold us at gun point/knife/axe or whatever suits, terrorise my wife and children, take what they want and hopefully don't kill us..........If thats the law mate you can shove it. Because all the time mans best friend and protector is locked away, because of the politically correct brigade. Mind you next time i'll send them on a water rafting weekend as well should i!!!!

 

Thanks for the responses guys,

Really am still struggling to come to terms with it all, the fact the thiefs came into my house was bad enough let alone trying to steal and then damaging the car,

The police officers or should I say the sargent who was instructing them to arrest me really did finish me off. If the police had called a recovery team out to simply recover my vehicle because it was not drivable or in a dangerous obstuctice position then fair be it, fully expect that to be at my or my insurers cost. given my car was only 300yds away from my garden in a deserted back street the revovery was not required.


But the fact they called the recovery team out to get my car took to the police investigation depot (soco? there decsion completely) for printing and dna testing, without my knowledge of my liabilty for these cost beggers belief, I think if most of you check with your insurers, they would cover recovery on police request for any of the above first paragraph. But think you may find recovery to and from a place of the police offiers request for for finger print analysis only will not be covered.

They sent another officer out to print my house without any charge guess I am lucky they did not charge me petrol money for that.

I really would think twice about calling the police out again seriously!!
I mean really what is the point.

They did not check the surrounding area for evidance or even knock on doors to see if any one had seen anything. The very next morning first thing (in daylight) me and my brother (John) went and roughly tracked the theifs tracks, 5ft away from the car were the latex gloves
(through a huge hole in the fence leading to the park thank god i did not let it go to soco for printing) half way down the street behind a skip was my brief case opened and full of mud but none the less there.
Thank god all my course work 6months worth for my nvq3 cim course still there just muddy. You really would think the police would of done this, well to be fair you would of thought the police would of took all the details of missing items, in an hope they would turn up, I told them my mag light had gone from the house, and they did not even ask what colour it was ??? But hey they did threaten to arrest me and like said if they had just looked through the hole in the fence where the car was abandoned they would of found latex gloves, and made the finger printing less of a priorty.

rant off....

Thanks again guys for the interest and sympathy......