Failure of Authorities

sahi28

I am sorry but I could not find the right forum category and we should ask for help from the citizens advice bureau, but I would like to tell such an astonishing story I have never had in my life, with authorities who are supposed to help our safety life in London.
I'm from the far east, the well developed country, I came to London about 15 years ago, most of us in London every often can discuss how trouble free our country is, comparing to the things happening in the UK life and similarly in many other countries.

This time, it is about the issue with the local council and the police.

On a day in this Spring, when we were at work, apparently someone called emergency service saying that "a woman in 10 xxxx Road is fainted" .
Then actually the police or ambulance broke in our house in 10 zzzzz Road by mistake, the police mentioned when we arrived home after work.
The police left a memo with the contact details for compensation for the broken doors, after changing the key of the front door, leaving 1 hinge broken with large black foot prints on the front door, that is wobbly and the really shockingly damaged internal door.
We sent letter to the police to send us compensation money as soon as possible so that we can repair the doors.
Actually the police replied that the ambulance made mistake of the road name, and even utterly surprising sentence in their letter is that "it is a misuse of public fund". They referred the letter to the ambulance.
Then we received a letter from ambulance say that it is not their fault and the police made a mistake.
A month after the ambulance letter, we now received an invoice from the ambulance, £230 for calling emergency service, which at all we should not get involved.
How on earth in 21st century, ever peculiar things happen in this country and why on earth need to spend considerably high time and money for only the average earners like us. It seems to me that to live in London safely with decent life, we need at least 6 figures earnings each.

Silver-Surfer_2

Mistakes happen always have and alway will.

Keep_pedalling

It will have been the police who broke your door. Take the matter up with your local councilor or MP.

Silver-Surfer_2

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

It will have been the police who broke your door. Take the matter up with your local councilor or MP.

I don't think that's disputed.

What needs to be established is who took the 999 call and therefore the wrong address.

sahi28

Thank you, I will try to find out who took the 999 call and therefore the wrong address.

CoolHotCold

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

I don't think that's disputed.

What needs to be established is who took the 999 call and therefore the wrong address.

Actually I think you need to find out at what point your address was the one that was determined to be the "correct" address.

It could be the receiver took the right details, passed it onto ambulance who passed on the correct details to the police who then went to the wrong address, or a case of the 999 operator taking the wrong details, or the ambulance attending the wrong place.


The blame ultimately lies with where the mistake happened. It could also be a case someone reported ZZZ address (from the public) when it was really XXX address, in which case you're out of luck (and thus the reason for home insurance exists)

Silver-Surfer_2

CoolHotCold wrote: »

Actually I think you need to find out at what point your address was the one that was determined to be the "correct" address.

It could be the receiver took the right details, passed it onto ambulance who passed on the correct details to the police who then went to the wrong address, or a case of the 999 operator taking the wrong details, or the ambulance attending the wrong place.


The blame ultimately lies with where the mistake happened. It could also be a case someone reported ZZZ address (from the public) when it was really XXX address, in which case you're out of luck (and thus the reason for home insurance exists)

Given the nature of the call I would say it went to the ambulance service first. If as it usually happens they attended first, could not get in and then requested the police, you can rule out any error by one of them.

George_Michael

I'm only guessing here but I would have thought that any information recorded as part of the 999 call and subsequent calls and messages would fall under the Data protection act and actually getting hold of that info would be extremely difficult.

Silver-Surfer_2

Thing is they ask for a postcode, are roads xxxx and zzzz on the same postcode?

unholyangel

George_Michael wrote: »

I'm only guessing here but I would have thought that any information recorded as part of the 999 call and subsequent calls and messages would fall under the Data protection act and actually getting hold of that info would be extremely difficult.

They could give OP a transcript and omit any personal data belonging to the caller.

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

Thing is they ask for a postcode, are roads xxxx and zzzz on the same postcode?

I can honestly say I've never once been asked for my postcode when calling 101 or 999. Perhaps they only do it in certain areas?

Silver-Surfer_2

unholyangel wrote: »

I can honestly say I've never once been asked for my postcode when calling 101 or 999. Perhaps they only do it in certain areas?

In a civilised world it's the quickest way to locate the incident and allocate a resource to the job.