Its almost as if they have had to suffer massive cuts over the last 5 years

They were well on their way downhill prior to then.

Have you tried complaining to the police?

Yes, a terrible experience all round.

OP, I’ll ignore all the trolls and attempt to address your issue.

You and your wife quite rightly believe an offence has been committed. The correct offence is most likely to be “making off without payment” and is known as bilking. This is often associated with petrol forecourt “drive offs”. It better meets this definition than fraud, (and obtaining property by deception was replaced by the 2006 Fraud Act) as it can be argued they haven’t falsely represented anything (eg. given a cheque that has bounced or a fake bank card).

As a sh1t lazy police officer, in between stuffing myself with donuts and beating up members of minorities I have seen people given custodial sentences for committing repeat offences against restaurants, let alone a high-value loss like yours.

Contacting the IPCC is a waste of time- your complaint will spend weeks bouncing from in-tray to in-tray being referred back to the original force, where it will end up getting allocated to (in all likelihood due to the regs) an Inspector to resolve (who may further delegate).

Under the Home Office Counting Rules and the National Crime Recording Standard you believe an offence has occurred, therefore it has. The days of fudging figures by discounting or reclassifying offences are supposed to be long-gone (they are in my force).

This is what my force tell our public about recording

http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/aboutus/aboutus-operf/aboutus-stplan-cr.htm

Don’t roll over because you HAVE been poorly served. Call your home force on “101” the non-emergency number, get your complaint logged as such, quote any reference you were given for your original offence report, and ask to speak to an inspector.

That shall be done…
(From one lazy, ill educated, headline bothering public servant type person to another; thanks!)

DrP

Just to add a bit more balance the budget cuts are having a massive impact despite the ill informed views of some previous posters. There is more crime than officers to deal with it. It’s not uncommon for DC’s in CID to be managing in excess of 30+ investigations at once and those are usually more complex serious crimes. There is obviously poor service to the public on occasion (and it sounds like you’ve experienced it here DrP) but there are also some fairly unrealistic expectations from the public. Have a think about the breadth of things the Police are supposed to deal with. Everything from shoplifting to terrorism, cannabis smoking to murder, domestic arguments to missing children. Hope it gets sorted DrP.

Have a think about the breadth of things the Police are supposed to deal with. Everything from shoplifting to terrorism, cannabis smoking to murder, domestic arguments to missing children.

As well as abusing their powers, spending countless man hours and resources covering up for each others mistakes and deliberate wrongdoings, then spending even more ‘investigating’ such instances when they are caught out, tampering with evidence, assaulting innocent people going about their lawful business, spying on and publicly discrediting innocent victims of crime who dare to speak out and ask for answers, breaking laws themselves, acting as state funded security for private corporations etc etc!

Yes, I can see why they are too busy to do their jobs properly.

Hi
I agree with you. The Police should be involved and you should look to escalate it through their complaints procedure.
At the end of the day they came to your wife, had services provided and left without paying. Criminal not Civil!
No different in my eyes to pulling onto a filling station, filling my car then driving off without paying.
I’m not a lawyer though

Apparently down here in Devon an Cornwall driving off without paying for fuel is now a civil offence rather than criminal

The police don’t deal with fraud any longer, it’s been delegated down to a website, which doesn’t really deal with it!,,

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-az-individual-fraud

Apparently down here in Devon an Cornwall driving off without paying for fuel is now a civil offence rather than criminal

Many forces ARE considering that as a formal approach in order to manage what they do and don’t attend-I think the rationale is that the station has ANPR so has the means to pursue the driver, and public funds can be better spent elsewhere (not my argument, I don’t speak for my force or the other 42 in England and Wales).

DrP there is every chance that your original call didn’t even reach the eyes of a police officer (let alone CPS)- it would have gone into something like our Police Enquiry Centre where a suitably trained civilian call taker would have recorded it, and may have classified it and “filed” it there and then.

rene, obvious troll is obvious etc, so I’ll just leave these stories that book-ended my 2 years on our Professional Standards Dept here

http://www.sloughexpress.co.uk/News/All-Areas/Slough/Suspended-sentence-for-cocaine-fuelled-police-officers-having-affair-15022.htm

http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/9031636.PC_jailed_over_indecent_images_of_children/