Harassment and third party

sassy_one

Hi,


I am seeking some advice on behalf of someone.

There is a couple who are constantly being harassed by the Police mainly, but also by their third party agencies.

One side of the family keeps calling Police reporting one of the parties in the couple for various things ranging from concerns for welfare, victim of violence etc etc.

Each time the Police get involved, investigate and decide no offences have been committed.
The matter has even gone as far as PPU and put to the CPS due to the mass contact the family keep having with Police reporting these things maliciously. 

I add, the family are estranged and they do not have contact with the person.
Now normally once or twice you could let it go but this couple have now had this on going for years.

So far the Police have over 40 logs of various things, as mentioned above all around the same thing reported each time.


They've spoken to the Police about what they can do and they are advised the Police have a duty of care and must continue to complete any checks.
So are they telling them they have to live with this?
When a little old lady gets mugged and no Police are available yet they can keep calling at an address day or night while no offences or concerns arise from it?


Surely this cannot be right and if it is, then I have lost even more confidence in our trash can justice system.

Finally, would a Non molestation order prevent this? As far as I read it prevents someone using a third party to cause the alarm or distress also.

Thank you!

pphillips

The police and other state agencies will have certain standards and a complaints procedure to follow.
Non Molestation relates to a specific category of family members, it can't be used against the police or other state agencies.

Fireflyaway

If people keep calling the emergency services unnecessarily, the Police in this case, the Police themselves could charge the person with wasting Police time or even Perverting the Course of Justice if it's something more serious. It's tricky though because the emergency services have a duty of care and won't know from the initial call that it's a hoax and can't risk not responding. See if you can get some more advice from the Police.

Comms69

You main complaint should be focused on the need to contact you at those times.

If minor allegations are being made, contact can be via phone; and voluntary interview if necessary. 

The only times they should be turning up at your door is welfare check and if there's a necessity to arrest

TBagpuss

They may be able to apply for a restraining order or non-molestation order against the 3rd party family member who is making the malicious calls to police. 
They an't apply for one against the police who re carrying out their duty.

Informally, they can perhaps ask to meet with the police and discuss the situation, and perhaps ask whether they can start phoning rather than calling round, or if a single officer can given the role of liaising with them so they at least have someone they know. It *might* be possible to ask the police to have a marker / note against their names and address to explicitly flag up the problem so it is brought to the attention of any officer  before they make the call - this won't stop it but may allow them to weed out the more obvious hoax calls 

TBagpuss

When you say they were put to CPS,do you mean that the police investigated the 3rd party and were looking at them being prosecuted for harassment or some other offence, or that your 'friend' was being investigated and the police got as far as putting it to the CPS?
If it is the former, then they can ask the police to look again at whether they can now charge them with anything as the problem is continuing, if the latter then then it sounds as though there are grounds for the police to think some of the allegations may have some truth in them. 

Also - how confident are you that you know the full picture? For instance, if the allegations relate to one half of the couple being accused of domestic abuse, be aware that many abusers can be very charming and convincing, and that just because you have not seen it and they deny it, doesn't mean that they may not be abusive to their partner, and the family member may have genuine and well founded reasons for reporting issues, for example.  

Pollycat

The OP has started another thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6158452/more-police-woes#latest

As I said, it would have been better if the OP had put the update on the old thread instead of starting a new one.