Cops 'n' Robbers

Imagine the scene,

You have been out all day, at work, in the car, shopping or taking the kids to the park. The sun is shining, the air is free and all is right with the world. You are looking forward to the evening ahead, a nice meal, good bottle of wine and your feet up in front of the TV.

As you approach your home you get the uneasy feeling that all is not well, you begin to feel uncomfortable and your face changes from being happy and relaxed, to one of concern. You are not sure why you are starting to feel this way but you know it doesen't feel good. As you approach the front door your fears are confirmed when you find you don't need to put your key in the lock as the door has been forced open. Carefully you push it to one side and are faced with the reality of being burgled. Your stomach turns into a tight knot as you quickly scan around the mass of devastation laid bare in front of you. Your personal possessions and property have been ransacked by some other thoughtless mindless person or persons unknown. They have been in your house, they have gone through your things, they have invaded your space and privacy. You feel sick.

What do you do?

A myriad of things start to whirl through your mind. Who? What? When? Why? How? Will my insurance cover this? Over and over again as panic starts to set in. The mess. The intrusion. You feel dirty that someone else has rifled through and removed your hard earned possessions for their own personal financial gain, probably to be put up on a well known internet auction website. At some point you then think that it would be a good idea to ring the Police.

But here lies the question, what number do you call? You have been burgled, the theives could be just round the corner laughing at your expense. Do you dial 999 to call the Police out in an emergency, or do you try and find the phone book under the pile of rubble to look up the number of your local station? At this point I want to ask each and every one of you what would you do? Before writing this blog I decided to do a little bit of research and carried out an extreemly unscientific straw poll.

I asked around a few family and friends as to what they would do and the results were quite surprising. Around 50% of those asked would dial 999 straight away as they viewed the situation as an emergency whereas the other 50% said otherwise. Comments ranged from a woman on her own arriving at the door with bags of shopping through to a few teenagers entering the premises together and the response was varied. One person told me how the Police were alledgedly so busy they requested the house owner take with them a piece of damaged property to the station so that forensic evidence could be undertaken. Whilst another said that the Police could not be helpful enough.

I wondered if this had any influence as to what part of the UK you are in? Bearing this in mind I then asked a little further afield and again the answers were quite varied. In London the largest response was to call for the emergency service straight away, whereas in Dorset, those questioned said otherwise. The trail of thought and general consensous seemed to be if you are brought up in an area surrounded by sirens, hustle, bustle and general organised chaos then you are more likely to think of classing everything as an emergency. However, if you are brought up in the country where life is done at a more slower pace - even if you live in the average sized town, then people think more methodically and work from a different angle. Whilst this is not a dig at anyone, townie or country bumpkin alike, it did seem to paint an interesting picture in its unscientific way.

Every year the emergency services release on the news their most ridiculous phone calls that they receive in the light of showing the general public what is unnacceptable and how such stories are a waste of valuable Police time. Stories of how a snowman were reported as having been stolen whilst sitting out in the sun, too many onions were once in a man's takeaway and a woman once called outraged that the bunny wunny rabbit that she had bought did not have floppy ears as promised in the newspaper advert. All of which are genuine stories but none of which are real emergencies - let alone worth making a phone call in the first place.

So what would you do if faced with this terrible situation?

We'll I'll give you the official guidelines on another blog but for now I'll open up the debate for you to answer. I'm interested to hear your opinions, thoughts and comments on both what you would do in the situation as described above but also would like to know what area of the country you come from to see if my theory holds water.

Wingwalker.