Terrified: Matthew Sims, Sarah Barham and their children were forced to hide in an upstairs bedroom while eight masked raiders searched their home
Posted on 04/29/2008 2:16:19 AM PDT by Stoat
Cowering upstairs with his partner and their two children as a gang of burglars wielding an axe emptied his living room, Mathew Sims wasted no time in calling 999.
But instead of the immediate response he expected, the police told him: "We're too busy to help."
Within minutes, the burglars drove off with a haul of stolen property.
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Terrified: Matthew Sims, Sarah Barham and their children were forced to hide in an upstairs bedroom while eight masked raiders searched their home
Officers only turned up at the family's home three hours later. By then all they could do was take statements.
The burglary happened shortly after 11pm last Tuesday.
Mr Sims, 24, heard his dog barking then noticed the kitchen light flicker on downstairs.
He pushed open the door and was confronted by eight intruders, wearing balaclavas. One had an axe.
He slammed the door shut - and was hit by flying glass as one raider swung the weapon at him, smashing the pane.
Mr Sims ran upstairs to Sarah Barham and their children Lewis, six, and Macey, five. They barricaded themselves in a bedroom and held the door shut.
"Thankfully, the men didn't come upstairs, but I was worried about my children's safety," said Mr Sims.
"The minute we knew these people were in the house we rang the police, but they said it would be at least half an hour before they could come out."
The burglars' haul included a PlayStation 3, a sat-nav device, a wireless internet router, mobile phones and 24- year- old Miss Barham's bag, keys and bank cards.
Mr Sims, who lives in Arnold, near Nottingham, added: "Nobody from the police had turned up half an hour later, and when we rang again they said there was no one they could send.
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Target: The family home in Arnold, Nottinghamshire
"They said officers around the area were looking for the cars we had described and anyone suspicious, but we didn't see one police car come past.
"Then we had a call to say no one could come out to see us that night and we should get our heads down and someone would be there in the morning.
"We were kicking up a fuss, asking why no one could come when we had had people in our house. I ended up putting the phone down in frustration."
At 2.30am, officers arrived at the house to take statements.
Yesterday, Chief Inspector Andy Burton of Nottinghamshire Police said in a statement: "On this occasion the way control-room staff dealt with this incident fell way short of the standard I expect.
"The force has apologised to the family by way of letter and I personally have contacted the family this morning.
"An investigation is being carried to find out why there was not an immediate response and any findings will be shared with the family."
Mr Sims, 24, who lives only a mile from a police station, said: "I told the police I could have had my head cut off. But still no one came.
"We need to feel safe in our home. We couldn't sleep afterwards. It took a couple of days to feel okay."
Miss Barham said: "They should have responded and made us a priority, not turned up three hours later.
"I'm scared to go to the shops on my own now. I keep thinking what would have happened if Mat hadn't been here."
Nottingham was recently named Britain's burglary capital.
House burglary levels in the city are 63 per cent above the national average, according to a league table which is compiled from insurance records of areas where a homeowner is most likely to experience a break-in.
The nation that stands with us in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere deserves far better than to have to cower behind a barricaded bedroom door while street thugs ransack their home.
Please say a prayer for the people of Great Britain.
If he had told them that he had a gun and he was going to use it, they would have been around immediately. It is quite simple. Labour Party policing means ticking boxes. It means solving crimes. It means that there is no point in attending a crime scene if the perpetrators are not going to be there to be arrested. If the householder threatens to defend himself, the police will attend, because he is going to be there and available to be arrested, charged, prosecuted and convicted.
- Mr. J. Smith, Birmingham, England
Next time you are burgled, phone and tell the police that a crowd of OAP Bowls Club pensioners have broken in, and the whole force will turn up.
- James Harrison, Norwich, UK
Indeed. Can you imagine? These thugs would have been blown away - of course when you call the police and tell them you have three bodies in your foyer, they come immediately!
In the USA, if it's an obvious matter of legal self defense, the attending officers will most likely compliment you on your marksmanship and ask if they can be of any additional assistance to you and your family in this upsetting time.
Sounds like the fellow here in NH who was dealing with a nuisance bear. Had been an ongoing problem with the bear getting more and more fearless and aggressive. F&G told him they couldn’t be there for a couple hours. So he shot and killed the bear himself. There were several fishcops there within a few minutes.
I thought it was only in NH but I see it’s like that everywhere.
Political correctness run amok brings such as this. No family should ever be required by ‘the law’ to be defenseless during a home invasion. These poor folk have been victimized by their government; they just stood by and acquiesced to their government’s bullying. America - WAKE UP.
Keep voting those liberals in office.
It’s not very likely that Brits will ever get the right to own guns, which is a crying shame.
But there’s a secondary issue here, a right they already have that they are obviously not using.
They have the right to VOTE.
That means VOTE THE LOCAL POLITICIANS OUT OF OFFICE.
Why aren’t they doing that?
Why aren’t they organizing to elect leaders that AT THE VERY LEAST will make police protection something along the lines of the average US police force.
I know it’s not much, compared to the right to own guns and defend yourself, but at least it’s SOMETHING. And the Brits in that town don’t seem interested in even doing THAT.
They are sheep. I have no sympathy for them.
If they don’t have the guts to ask this question:
“How much is the police chief making and what are we getting in return for his salary?”
Then I have absolutely no sympathy for them.
Let them cower in fear, for all I care. That’s what sheep do.
Talk about gross incompetence—and it evidently encompasses the entire police department—from top to bottom!
(I recall Nottingham has a long history regarding robbery. This axe wielding group, however, doesn't seem to be “robbing the rich to give to the poor”!)
Two choices:
1. Hit redial every two minutes
2. A 1911 or similar large caliber with high capacity magazines. Castle Doctrine Laws will keep you out of jail, but the English people don't have that protection.
Gang Rule now in LA and various other blue locations.
Coming next to your home town.
The next logical step in the mind of a lib will be to ban all axes.
I would imagine that peoples' frustration at being forced to remain helpless while being victimized with impunity will indeed manifest itself in increasingly creative measures designed to get an appropriate level of response. If I were forced to endure such an existence, my tiny little brain would be constantly working over any conceivable scenario and ways in which I could manipulate the Government to aid me....or ways in which I could circumvent obviously unjust laws so that I might still be able to live.
And I would also be feverishly looking for ways to leave. Forcing people to live this way is inhuman.
And why not? (the cynic mutters) Your chance of facing an axe-weilding burgler is close to nil. But vote for a liberal politican and he makes sure government goodies come your way like blowing snow.
Indeed Stoat, prayers for the good people of the UK in this terrible time of confusion and incompetence..
They tend to get upset when 'ordinary citizens' start doing their jobs for them when they won't, I suppose.
In the UK they don’t allow guns. They put you in jail for protecting your life, family and property. That leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the UK is quite happy to have criminals take what they want - a redistribution of income so loved by marxists, and they don’t have to pass any laws to make it happen.
Darkly funny and very true, beset by wolves yet they run off the Shepherd.
Police in this country now are just cowards and only want to deal with the easy crimes like somebody making a racial comment, you'll get a policeman round in two minutes flat to deal with that one.
At one time issues like that were way down the priority list and burglary with an axe right at the top, voting in the conservatives at the next election won't solve the problem they're the same as Labour, sadly only a party like BNP or UKIP will see to our broken society that's how desperate we've become unfortunately.
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