Police response to missing child....

blue_monkey_2

I have called 999 on 2 occassions in the past and both times got through to an answerphone asking me to leave a message. !!!!!!? What do you do? I was a witness not the person actually needing assistance and put the phone down. Kind of felt bad I could not actually help any more and hoped someone else had got through but what if someone had a gun to their head, what if it was someone being attacked or there was a nutter with a gun on the loose.

They did call me back about 15 minutes later and I told them what I had seen but that I was gone now.

blue_monkey_2

On another note though.

I have to admit that if I asked a policeman, in a police station, for help then yes, I would expect to receive it, not get asked to call 999 myself as he/she could not help. I am sure that on or off duty the police have a duty to help the public - even if that means giving their colleagues a call on her behalf.

It could well have been the cleaner in there but in that case they should not have answered the door/phone!

viktory

fwhorn wrote: »

Question. Was he Portugese?

What the hell has this got to do with anything?

Happychappy

viktory wrote: »

What the hell has this got to do with anything?

Its just the sicko's idea of a funny referring to the Portugese Police and Madeline McCanne case.

hollydays

oh my aching sides

hollydays

blue_monkey wrote: »

On another note though.

I have to admit that if I asked a policeman, in a police station, for help then yes, I would expect to receive it, not get asked to call 999 myself as he/she could not help. I am sure that on or off duty the police have a duty to help the public - even if that means giving their colleagues a call on her behalf.

It could well have been the cleaner in there but in that case they should not have answered the door/phone!

I think the PC who opened the door did the right thing opening the door-when he saw the Mother hadnt been attacked etc- he did what he did ( by the book,but not what many of us personally would have wanted).Its also fair to say,we dont know if he had had to work another 2/3/4 hours on his shift that day anyway.Even so,its not what you would expect,and a little discretion wouldnt go amiss here.

oldbill1969

In my view it was wrong for the Police Officer to tell the OP to phone it through, he was faced with a distressed parent who was at her wits end over her missing daughter. Yes she may have just stayed out a little longer but you really can't take the chance. The statisitcs would show that that the vast majority of absent children are not in an danger however what the Officer has to guard against is complacency. Its the single case that is genuine that will bite you in the backside big style. we are ruled by stats
As Police officers we are here to serve the public, yes it may be a little annoying when you are just about to go off duty after a busy 12 hour shift but the job we do is not just an ordinary job. The officer should at least have tried to reassure the OP and taken an initial missing persons report and circulated it.
Unfortunately we are ruled by statistics and performance indicators these days, not so much by how many arrests are made but by how many sanctioned detections you get. A sanctioned detection is where the person has been charged, given a formal warning, fixed penalty ticket(Crime only not traffic related matters). In cases of whether a person is charged that is the CPS's decision and too be honest very few arrests get charged because the CPS have to ensure that they will end up with a conviction at Court, otherwise their performance figures will suffer. Therefore in a lot of cases where it does'nt hit what they see is a cast iron conviction, the victim will not even get their day in Court .Hence the proliferation in warnings, cautions and crime fixed penalty tickets being given because the decision stays with the Police for these matters and we obtain a sanctioned detection.
I could go on and on but will leave it there for the moment.....................

Poppy9

We are alll assuming that it was a Police Officer who spoke to the OP. It could have been a PCSO as the uniform is virtually identical.

andyrules

I just wonder what would have happened if the outcome hadn't been a happy one?

I suspect there would have been a massive and expensive inquiry about procedure, an enormous document bearing the name of the presiding judge/Lord and yet another change in policy - which in reality would just be another paper exercise taking up valuable time. :rolleyes:

fwhorn

Happychappy wrote: »

Its just the sicko's idea of a funny referring to the Portugese Police and Madeline McCanne case.

All I am doing is a comparison. If you had read anything about the way the MM case was started off you may have understood, but that would be asking to much. When MM was reported as being missing, the police response was that she had wandered off, and offered little help. So that is the why the reference to a Portugese police officer, and this was all picked up by the media.
Sicko, sorry mate I dont think so.