Scarred: Simon Pither suffered serious head injuries in the burglary
Posted on 05/18/2008 9:23:51 PM PDT by Stoat
A businessman who was almost beaten to death by three crowbar-wielding burglars claims police haven't carried out DNA tests to identify his attackers – because they can't afford to pay for them.
IT consultant Simon Pither, 36, was savagely beaten over the head when he interrupted the gang at his £300,000 home.
The married father of two sustained such serious skull injuries during the assault that doctors told him he was lucky to be alive.
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Scarred: Simon Pither suffered serious head injuries in the burglary
He had emergency surgery, 40 internal and external stitches and two-and-a-half months of intensive physiotherapy.
Following the brutal attack, detectives took a sample of DNA from under his fingernails in a bid to track down the gang.
But two months after the incident a Scotland Yard officer called his home and said the DNA samples had been returned because the force did not have sufficient funds to pay for the analysis.
Mr Pither said: "The world is run by budgets. It is outrageous and disgraceful."
Commercial DNA laboratories offer similar profiling tests for around £200.
It was Mr Pither's sister-in-law, teaching assistant Sarah Cowmey, 30, who took the call from police while she was babysitting his two children.
She said: "The police said the DNA samples which they had sent in to the laboratory had been rejected because they didn't have sufficient funding, so they would be sending them again within a week or so because hopefully the funding would have come through.
"They didn't ask who I was, so I was a bit surprised that they were willing to give out that sort of information."
The attack took place in January when Mr Pither returned to his home in Norwood, South London.
He recalled: "I arrived and there were two guys standing with their heads round the back of the TV.
"One turned round and asked me what I was doing there, and I told him it was my house. All of a sudden we started to have a bit of a tussle."
Mr Pither, who used to teach martial arts, tried to prevent the men leaving but during the struggle one of them struck him with the crowbar.
He said: "I looked up and saw the guy leaving, and all of a sudden there was blood shooting down my face.
"I walked back in and there was blood dripping on the carpet.
"It was new and I thought, 'My wife will kill me if I get blood all over that', so I went outside the front door and phoned my father-in-law, who lives nearby, and he rang the police."
The three men, who were black and aged between 17 and 25, made off with a camera, an iPod, a watch and some memory sticks.
Conservative MP Philip Davies said: "This sounds bizarre and completely outrageous and unacceptable.
"If dangerous thugs are still at large because the Metropolitan Police cannot pay their tab, we've reached a pretty depressing state of affairs.
"The Met spends hundreds of thousands of pounds each year on diversity training.
"They should concentrate on their first priority: tackling crime."
A spokesman for the Forensic Science Service said: "On average, DNA tests can be turned around in three or four days.
"In urgent cases, they can be turned around more quickly, perhaps taking as little as 24 hours."
In a statement, Scotland Yard said: "We are currently awaiting the results from the laboratory relating to forensic and DNA opportunities that have been taken from the premises as a result of the offence.
"Financial considerations have never had any influence on the way this case has been handled."
Please say a prayer for the people of Great Britain
Universal health care. Stand in line— NO smoking!
Will gladly do so in the name of Jesus …
This isn’t even a health care issue, it’s a police issue. Not only don’t police protect you, now they can’t even afford to work lead to catch suspects. Sad. Maybe they should disband the police over there.
This is the kind of thing that happens when you have a Socialist government.
"Islamic law permits men to have up to four wives at any one time - known as a harem - provided the husband spends [arranges for British citizens to provide the resources so that he can spend] equal amounts of time and money on each of them."
[My corrections]
As someone that worked in law enforcement for over 28 years. The Cops that talked to you were speaking from experience. If they (robbers) were professionals, they wore gloves, if they were amateurs, their fingerprints would not, in all probability, be in the system
You don’t know unless you check though. I got the impression that it was too much trouble.
You’re kidding, right? People that break into garages to steal bicycles are probably dumb enough not to wear gloves and have probably spent most of their lives going through the system.
Petty theft like that is either kids or druggies.
A desperately, passionately depressing article; but essential and relevant, thank you.
This FR thread from April may also be of interest:
Great Britain Muslim is spared a speeding ban so he can drive between his two wives
Shakespeare that ain't!
Considering all that is happening (crime wise) in our neighborhoods, mayhap this was something less than topmost on their radar? I know how must have felt, and rightly so, that it was topmost on your radar, however, priorities must be adhered to. Did you push the local police in this matter? Sometimes the police have to be pushed to get their attention.
Unfortunately, I worked in a large metropolitan police department so I have trouble relating to local, small town municipality departments and their priorities.
Sadly, I haven't found our own American 'news' papers to be any better. Decades ago, newspapers held themselves to an extremely high standard of literary excellence, to the point that word usage in newspapers was frequently cited when evaluating and judging the 'correctness' of grammar and sentence structure. This is one of the things that has been lost in the news business, along with a dedication to objectivity.
It's sad to have to watch something die......although in many ways along with death comes a rebirth, at least in this context. Although bloggers and 'newmedia' sources will oftentimes have a specific point of view, they are (usually) quite open and proud about that, and they are often quite proper in their use of grammar.....frequently far more so than the 'major' papers, at least in my experience.
-ccm
Thank goodness this guy didn’t have a gun! Somebody might have gotten hurt!
Mark
Mark
Good thing he didn’t fight back and hurt one of the criminals or he’d have gone to jail.
Nobody cares.
Professionals don't steal bikes out of garages. That sounds more like dopers and their prints would more than likely be in AFIS. I see the same people come in and out year after year. There are simply too many burglaries and too few cops to properly investigate each and every one.
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