Wrightyson we had a 9 ton 360 torched last year in Stamford, fire brigade said it was arson.
Some young police woman came out and said it must of been an electrical fault. We did ask her if it was an electrical fault how come the radio is gone and some of the bits that were in it ended up half across the field and the side shutter is laying in the river. She never did answer.

A couple of days later a retired work colleague had his two classic tractors burnt out 1/2 mile down the road.

My ex put his car in auto trader. Someone rang, said they were interested and what was the postcode? Two hours later the car had been stolen.

The cops (Herts) were unhelpful and unsympathetic and said "We're not coming to look at an empty space in the road".

We gave the cops the mobile phone number. They refused to follow it up on human rights grounds. They said there was no connection between the call and the disappearance. When I made a formal complaint they then came out with some crap about how much it costs to get the phone company to check numbers etc etc etc.

They refused to check the local cctv footage.

Two months later we got a call from Sussex police. They had had the car in the pound (Ontime have the franchise) since the Sunday after the Thursday when the car was taken. It had been twinned and they (and Essex police) had spent two months trying to contact the owner of the donor plate before it occured to them to check the vin. I pointed out to the cop that, as the people who stole it were dishonest, it might have been an idea to check the vin straight away. He wryly acknowledged that I had a point.

Ontime tried to charge us storage for the two months, but we said no way, this is the cops' fault for not contacting us, so they reduced it to £105 for recovering the car from the crime scene (it had been used in a ram raid apparently – although there were only a few small marks on it).

I won't bore you with the rest – just a total nightmare of indifference and downright rudeness of the first cop we spoke to when a few kind words and explanation of under-funding and resulting dissolution of Herts' car crime division would have made all the difference.

Unfortunately, the Police role is one that generally gets the bad stuff remembered and the good stuff given less acknowledgement.

When the Police comes up in conversation, more often that not its shortly followed by " I once had bad dealings with … " "my friend got stopped by the Police for no reason … " Everyone has a bad story about then, cause thats all they remember.

Its a shame, I personally think that for all the bad points brought up in this thread ( which I dont dis-believe ) there are magnitudes more instances and cases where the Police have resolved an issue in good fashion… however, it goes un-sung as that was the job they were expected to do, so gets less of an acknowledgement ( if any ).

Most of my experience with the police, has been working with them on mental health act assessments, at times some have been surprising sensitive to some very ill people, and never once has one failed to front up when things kick off.
As a victim of crime; I once stepped in to stop some fella knocking the shite out of his wife outside a pub one saturday night, it didn't quite go to plan as I simply seemed to take a slapping on her behalf! After the incident, whilst heading home with a split lip and a shiner, a copper stopped me to ask what I'd been up to. He was surprisingly polite and took my story at face value, and checked I was OK took my details etc. Next morning 2 coppers appeared at my house with a book of photo's. They were pleased when I identified the guy, seems they went back to the pub got some witness statements, and the chap ended up in the clink! Seems he had a number of other offences to face and was on a suspended sentance.
Thumbs up for them in my book.

Police response times are appalling even when one of their own, who is a neighbour got decked by some thugs causing trouble walking past his house they took ages to arrive it took numerous phone calls . Another time a friends cousin was attacked in town when the police were called they said they were busy dealing with other incidents, when the ambulance took him to hospital there was a police car waiting on the slip road to catch speeders. bloody disgrace, they complained to the chief constable.

Well did as you said nonesense. Amazing how a request to speak to the duty seargent moves things along. Guy on the switchboard immediately said ok sir please dont get irate with me and I'll see what I can do. 2 mins later I'm being told the
crime number. He wasn't impressed as it was, to quote a "5 figure theft" and my complaint would be passed on. I did ask however ,how come I was now able to get the crime number when on 4 previous occasions it couldn't be issued without a visit! The exact response was, " sir do you really want me to bore you with the internal policies of the police force?"
Anyway here's hoping that when they unload my digger, it tips off the ramps and kills them! Night all!

You ain't gonna believe this , the mother **** have now stolen the telescopic forklift. At 11 this morning. They just drove it off site and down the road, even waved to the neighbour as they drove past!! Unfuckin believable! Police still haven't visited from the first incident, god knows if they'll bother this time.

Put a pic or spec on . A stolen one from Dronfield turned up in Doncaster/Thorne last night.

A bloke up our way had a nicely restored MF 135 nicked. The bloke had got to about Retford on it before they found him (20 miles or so at 12mph)…

They just waltzed into the site in broad daylight and drove it off without getting challenged by any of your staff?

It's Saturday so no one there.
Forklift is a bright red 2003 14 m manitou with banner plant stickers all over it. Not plated up for road use but the bloke obviously had other things on his mind!!!