That's fucking stupid

A little while ago my better half had her car damaged in a car park while she was shopping on a Wednesday. The person who damaged it did not have the decency to leave their contact details and so it’s a simple case of either criminal damage or leaving the scene of an accident. My other half rang Thames Valley police immediately and was told that she could not report it over the phone and had to go into a police station to fill out a form.

That weekend, three days later, she went to the main police station in town at the first opportunity and asked the civilian support person (they don’t have police desk sergeants any more, one can only assume because they cost too much) for a form to report the crime. She was asked when the incident had happened and was told that as it was over 24 hours it would not be processed unless she had a crime reference number from the person she had spoken to on the phone.

As she had not been informed that she needed a crime reference number and had not been offered one by the civilian support person and had not been told that she had to report the crime before 24 hours had passed she was left unable to report the crime and also unable to claim on her insurance because they require a crime number for it to be claimed as vandalism rather than her own fault.

So it would seem that insurance companies are profiting and police statistics are improving because silly little rules are being introduced to make it harder to report a crime.