Someone tried to steal my car now I'm worried

RacyRed

Tropez wrote: »

It really isn't as simple as some people are making it out to be and I can assure you given my experiences with police, with victims of crime and with people who have made the same slightly and unfortunately poor choices as the OP did in this situation that it is unlikely that the OP will be getting the desired result out of this.

Well I'm very glad to see that yvonne13 has proved you wrong.

If your experience with the police indicates that this sort of sensible outcome is unusual then it confirms my growing view that policing in the UK has become fundamentally flawed.

Fortunately yvonne13's experience on this occasion has given me hope again.

Yvonne13, great result

mishkanorman

So has he actually been arrested then ? The update doesnt say ?

Tropez

RacyRed wrote: »

Yes, I have the maturity to know the difference between an interesting debate and a waste of time. I don't (usually ) respond to wastes of time.

I'm happy to have a debate about it.

Yes, I have my opinions on the matter which I have from experience and I'll be the first to admit the law is a complete and utter !!! at times.

I don't have the same position anymore but I work in the same industry - an industry that only exists because of some of the scum that is out there and I've dealt with too many people than I care to remember who have fallen victim to crime, some serious, violent, involving weapons that shouldn't even be obtainable in the UK. Therefore, I cannot agree with what the OP actually did - and it is not because I believe that criminals deserve "human rights" (I've long subscribed to the theory that a criminal voluntarily abandons their rights upon committing a crime) but because I know that an understandable act is not always appropriate.

I happen to disagree with what the OP did because of the potential consequences of doing so.

I've dealt with people who have been so afraid and scared they've acquired cans of mace, unaware that in the UK these are classed as a firearm.

I've dealt with families who have suffered the loss of a loved one because that loved one did try and tackle the criminal and the emotional and psychological scarring this occurs is more damaging than the loss of the property that they died attempting to protect.

For what seemed like an eternity, although was in fact only a few years, I was personally deeply troubled by the encounters that I had, knowing that too many people only take security seriously once they fall victim to crime and by that time some expensive, high-tech bits and bobs won't heal those wounds.

And yes, I've dealt with police officers, many police officers. I have policy documents from every police department that my previous employer and my current employer has to work alongside - from policy in the UK, to Europe, to North America to Oceania and I have to be educated on these matters, even though now I sit at home and monitor systems remotely and barely have to leave my house for work.

If you disagree with what I say then that is fine, that is your prerogative after all and I hold no ill will towards you for that. I understand the urge to make somebody suffer for what they've done, I've experienced it myself but the law is the law, and the law is backwards and things aren't as easy as they should be. My company has supplied an enormous, almost incomprehensible amount of information to law enforcement over the years, including an awful lot that is now being used to prosecute the rioters but there's so much bureaucracy, red-tape and bullpoop to sift through. We have to adhere to numerous guidelines and then the government comes along and makes some new ones, and half the time A contradicts B, so we have to go to court to get legal rulings and it is an unbelievable chore.

The police - yeah, there's good ones, there's bad ones but in my experience there's a lot who are so scared of being laid off right now that they would rather stick to every letter of the law because the government considers them expendable.

On this - no, I don't consider myself wrong. I believe that the OP put herself in an unnecessary position, and in truth, in unnecessary danger. Thankfully, things have worked out in her favour - at least until the court comes along, gives the crook a slap on the wrists, paltry sentence, free meals etc. - but so often they don't and the OP could consider herself lucky this time; as unfortunate as it is, so many others haven't been.

pupsicola

3v3 wrote: »

Hardly original when I'd already said someone would come up with that chestnut

How do *you* know he was stealing her car?????? You only have the OP's word for it!

Who said I was on the side of the criminal? Hang on, wait, which "criminal" are we talking about here? It's all about perspective. The OP admits a criminal offense of assaulting someone: the OP states, the person claimed not to have been in the process of stealing it

Clearly the Police (who witnessed the assault) didn't believe there was enough evidence (in law!) to arrest the guy and the OP is very fortunate that she wasn't arrested herself (but that's only because the guy didn't choose to press it further) as her assault was witnessed by Police.

Think about it just for a moment:
What if (if!) the guy was telling the truth?
He doesn't fit the usual car thief/joy rider profile (middle aged; *pushing* the vehicle, slowly enough that more than 2 phonecalls were made by the neighbour and still was clearly in sight of the OP's back door! - why not hot wire it? - didn't retaliate when the OP was slapping him repeatedly around the head? Gears in "reverse"??). Hardly the actions of a determined car thief!

From her back door, the OP *thought* it was a "lad"; it later transpired it was a man of middle age! We don't know the description the neighbour gave (in the dark) of the person or if, indeed, the description given by the neighbour matched that of the middle aged man? (Bearing in mind even the OP was inaccurate in her assumption it was a lad).

The "level" I am on is quite simple: many people on this thread are jumping to conclusions in the same way the OP did. I'd rather stand back from the emotion of it and read what is written, not what I think is written. While many of you are band-wagon jumping, I prefer to take a less lynch-mob mentality!

And think for a moment ... even the Police didn't arrest him ... but, rather than consider it might be because they ran a person check, had the prior knowledge of the neighbours description, the man's "reasoning" for what he was doing ...you think its a simple matter that the Police were somehow lacking?

What if, the descriptions *didn't* match, the guy has no previous history of wrong-doing, his explanation is plausable? Just because the OP isn't privvy to that information, doesn't mean the Police were not - and they were the one's who made the judgement *not* to arrest the man!

Likewise, they made a decision *not* to arrest the OP, because the victim of the assault wouldn't pursue it.


And people who don't look at things from a more than one perspective have the same effect on me We'll agree to disagree, shall we? No name calling required

I wasn't trying to be original just expressing my view. Thank you for explaining your view in such detail :rotfl:. Though I notice a great many more posters on here agree with mine.

You protest too much I think!

make_me_wise

ska_lover wrote: »

Yvonne, you will find that most people would totally 100% back you up for giving someone a slap who was trying to rob from you. Good on you for standing up for yourself, girl!

People, do not get riled up by 3v3. Honestly this person has no life. They are well known for attention seeking and are loving all this attention you are giving. Ignore!

Having read this whole thread now I must say I completely agree with you. There seems to be an almost crazy obsession by 3v3 to try to make everyone see things his/her way. To be honest all this has achieved is to make this thread bloody hard work and tedious to read through.

yvonne13_2

Like I said from when the police has not called it assault no-one has the right to use that word against me. (Legal or not legal)

And no I didn't remember about the CCTV until much later I was more bother about getting my car back and getting some clothes on.

RacyRed

Thank you Tropez. I appreciate your insight on this.

Throughout this thread I've not argued points of law. My objection has been that the OP, who now has evidence in support of her assertation that she was the victim of a crime, was left last night feeling as if the police had let her down.

She was fortunate in that eye witnesses and CCTV were available as evidence. But if that evidence had not been available the facts of the issue would not have been any different. She would then have been left feeling that she was the victim of not only the thief but also of current policing policy.

In the recent riots so many people were left to watch their homes and livelihoods be destroyed while the police, in many instances, appeared to stand back and let that destruction happen. Yes, they later made many arrests and some of the perpetrators have been caught and are now being dealt with. And no, I do not hold this against the police on the streets at the time, they were following orders.

But can we afford to have a policing system that focuses on dealing with the aftermath of crime, not active prevention when this is possible? Is it right that ordinary people now worry that they must roll over and let it happen when they are the victims of crime?

My view is that this attitude empowers criminals and criminality and marginalises the rest of society. That balance is wrong. Very wrong.

In taking the action the OP did, the police would have been justified in quietly telling her that her actions could have been dangerous and perhaps illegal. But they chose to ask the thief, in front of the OP, if he wished to press assault charges. They DID know that a theft was in progress, that was why they had been called. Yet the frustrations of the opening post show how horrified someone, who we now know was deliberately targeted by a criminal, was at the way the police initially dealt with her.

No matter what the legalities, that is a seriously disturbing approach for the police to take, and it appears to be happening too often to be dismissed as a one off.

A re-think is needed - urgently.

Either we are able to rely on the police to properly protect us and our property or we must be empowered to follow our own judgement and take what we feel is appropriate action at the time the crime is enfolding.

If we continue to be kept in fear of criminality then as a society we loose hope. Our efforts to improve our lives and ourselves become futile. Why should we work hard if someone feels able to come along and, without risk to themselves, take what we have worked so hard for?

Tropez

yvonne13 wrote: »

Like I said from when the police has not called it assault no-one has the right to use that word against me. (Legal or not legal)

And no I didn't remember about the CCTV until much later I was more bother about getting my car back and getting some clothes on.

But in your OP, one of the police officers referred to it as assault, did they not? You said "the police started asking the man if he wanted to press charges against me for assault" and I'm also afraid, that while you may disagree, I'm only referring to the incident in the context in which you have presented it.

And I'm assuming therefore that you posted this thread before you remembered about the CCTV? I suppose that is understandable, although surely you can appreciate how having all of your evidence could have saved a few misunderstandings?

Anyway, there is no need to argue about it. As I said before, I don't disagree with what you did because I care about the crook but because I genuinely don't like to see the more insane aspects of the legal system working against the victims and I also don't like to see innocent people putting themselves in harms way.

I'm glad you have your car back and that you have been able to provide the police with evidence that they can use to prosecute him. Hopefully, given the information you have provided that he was already in custody for other offences, this one-man, slightly-dumb crime-wave will now be brought to a suitable conclusion.

yvonne13_2

This has happened before when a friend and I was in Burger King when it got robbed and the police ask me if I am sure I saw the man's face. I sure did he was pointing the gun in my face before he jumped in the car then the police tried to say we called the manager out from the back on purpose so the place could get robbed. Once again CCTV footage was on our side.

Tropez

RacyRed wrote: »

Thank you Tropez. I appreciate your insight on this.

Throughout this thread I've not argued points of law. My objection has been that the OP, who now has evidence in support of her assertation that she was the victim of a crime, was left last night feeling as if the police had let her down.

She was fortunate in that eye witnesses and CCTV were available as evidence. But if that evidence had not been available the facts of the issue would not have been any different. She would then have been left feeling that she was the victim of not only the thief but also of current policing policy.

In the recent riots so many people were left to watch their homes and livelihoods be destroyed while the police, in many instances, appeared to stand back and let that destruction happen. Yes, they later made many arrests and some of the perpetrators have been caught and are now being dealt with. And no, I do not hold this against the police on the streets at the time, they were following orders.

But can we afford to have a policing system that focuses on dealing with the aftermath of crime, not active prevention when this is possible? Is it right that ordinary people now worry that they must roll over and let it happen when they are the victims of crime?

My view is that this attitude empowers criminals and criminality and marginalises the rest of society. That balance is wrong. Very wrong.

In taking the action the OP did, the police would have been justified in quietly telling her that her actions could have been dangerous and perhaps illegal. But they chose to ask the thief, in front of the OP, if he wished to press assault charges. They DID know that a theft was in progress, that was why they had been called. Yet the frustrations of the opening post show how horrified someone, who we now know was deliberately targeted by a criminal, was at the way the police initially dealt with her.

No matter what the legalities, that is a seriously disturbing approach for the police to take, and it appears to be happening too often to be dismissed as a one off.

A re-think is needed - urgently.

Either we are able to rely on the police to properly protect us and our property or we must be empowered to follow our own judgement and take what we feel is appropriate action at the time the crime is enfolding.

If we continue to be kept in fear of criminality then as a society we loose hope. Our efforts to improve our lives and ourselves become futile. Why should we work hard if someone feels able to come along and, without risk to themselves, take what we have worked so hard for?

I think what you say is fair on the whole.

Amongst our particular group we have a running joke about "three inches" - it is the distance that a CCTV camera was unlawfully covering that prevented a violent offender from being convicted. We all knew he did it, we could prove he did it but because the camera was covering three inches of public property it was inadmissible as evidence and he walked free because of that little technicality. It is frustrating and demoralising.

Now, I agree that policing policy isn't up to scratch. There are various reasons for this. Some officers simply don't know where they stand anymore and as I mentioned previously, there is a not-insignificant number who are terrified at the prospect of losing their jobs.

Our industry is one of the biggest employers in the UK for ex-police and ex-military personnel and we have seen an unprecedented rise in job applications over the past 12 months, so much so that we have had to take on extra staff to process the applications and this trend doesn't seem to show any signs of diminishing just yet. Police officers are being laid off and there's an unfortunate feeling that this is just the beginning - and so what can you do? Any black mark on your record makes you a prime candidate for dismissal and therein lies the problem.

A police service that is confident that their superiors have their back, for want of a better phrase, is an effective police service. We don't have that at the moment.

We also have an array of vastly stupid laws, such as my three inch example, that prevent police officers and the guys who work for companies like ours from doing their job effectively as well as putting citizens in a situation whereby simply acting to defend their property has bigger potential consequences than harm. People actually get sued in this country for inflicting damage against a burglar and people are actually arrested and charged for trying to defend themselves and poorly worded policy about "reasonable force" informs the whole problem.

Nobody seems to know where they stand anymore. For those reasons, our company policy is that if you or your possessions are in jeopardy, the steps you take are to secure yourselves and your family, call the police and if you have certain services, call us because our lawyers and our budget allow for being sued left, right and centre and at the same time your wellbeing is the most important thing. We're a business, we're out to make money, but there's a lot of guys who work here who genuinely want people to be safe and secure and there's a lot of police officers who feel the same way.

The focus on prevention vs aftermath is a difficult one. The government is very limited in the advice that they can provide, and the police are hindered by a legal system that in some respects is noble for considering everybody equally, but at the same times vastly lacking in applying logic to situations.

And then, unfortunately, there's the fact that people don't consider security until they have fallen victim to crime. Our company is all about prevention, expensive prevention I'll admit but there's plenty of other similar businesses catering to all levels of budget - but as I said earlier, too many people call us after the fact and we might be able to prevent it happening again but we can't prevent it happening the first time around.

It all boils down to the bureaucracy surrounding law enforcement, personal protection, security industries etc. We're part of a group of companies who actively lobby the government to get the law changed so we can better serve our clients and it takes months, even years just to get someone to listen to us.

I sympathise with the OP. People need to have confidence and faith in the police because when there is no confidence and faith people feel they can do whatever they like. The riots, largely, were caused by a belief that the police couldn't stop them - and for several days they were right! There were huge debates on whether we can use water cannons, rubber bullets etc.

The change we need though must come from the top and be passed downwards and until then we're stuck, all of us.