So earlier today my mother's car got broken into. She was at one of her patient's houses and came out to discover her car window smashed in, handbag and purse stolen.
The police in that particular city (Cippenham, therefore Slough) are absolutely f'ing useless and always have been. She reported the crime and the police wouldn't take any details and basically blew her off. Even though she had someone there who witnessed the event.

Insurance have plain refused to cover both the damage and the missing item compensation. Citing that it wasn't "worth it for them". So she is now being forced to fork out for it herself, as well as being forced to pay for a replacement drivers license. She's lost the cash she had in there for shopping she was planning to do after work as well all her gift cards and such. She's just incredibly lucky she had her phone and keys in her pocket.

She's a nurse in her late 50's. She's too tired to deal with this sort of thing. And nurses in England get treated like literal dog crap and get paid almost nothing. She can't afford this sort of crap. She can barely afford to even scrape by at the best of times. I was lucky enough to of been paid earlier today so I could go and give her some cash to help out. Even that's still nothing in comparison since I barely make any money either, so I can't afford to help her out much.

Our only vague hope is, even though she cancelled her credit cards, the t**t tries to use it so it can be traced and he can be found. But even then the police in this country wont do more than say "well please don't be doing that again now!" to him if they do catch him.

Just don't know what to do really. We've always been an extremely poor family and this is the sort of thing she just can't deal with. She's had an absolutely horrible life already and I have no idea how else I can help her out..

5 years ago

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A semi-decent update!
Someone found mum's bag. It was apparently discarded in a park about a mile away from where it was taken (which reinforces my belief that the thief was local to that area). Her driver's license was there so she wont have to pay to replace that. And the shop cards she has were still there (you know the ones with points you can save after a shop).

Her credit card was not there, but it has already been cancelled and I told her to keep in touch with her bank to see if anyone actually does try and use it. And all the cash from the bag is obviously gone too. Notes and coins for food shopping she was planning on doing as well as a gift card from her mother. She also had a work issued ipad that was taken which, while it will be replaced, she assumes her work will probably try and charge her for it.
To get her window replaced is, currently, cheaper than we expected. But this is prior to all those extortionate "labour" charges they add on at the end.
Currently this is all looking at a minimum of a couple of hundred quid, subject to potentially increase. The cost probably doesn't seem like much to most people but, as I said, her income as a nurse is abysmal enough that even a fraction of that can take months to get back to.
(Taxes and bills in this country are high, even more so in Maidenhead).

I had already given her some money and I told her that, if at any point, she needs some more for petrol/food/the repairs, then to just please let me know and I will keep giving her as much as I can. Which in itself is barely anything but if I can spare it then I will.

I got her to update the police on the matter, she gave them the name, number and address of the lady who found the bag. So if the police do decide to do something about it (unlikely) they have another person to question. Wont get my hopes up for that though, budget cuts to the police for the past few years and changes in people's work ethics have rendered them less than useless. One of their automatic messages on the incident update phone line literally tells people to please not bother reporting crimes. Like...good fucking god that is disgusting.

I guess the main worry is that the home address was in her bag. So now the scumbag knows that. So if they were malicious enough they could now go to the address and break in. Which they might since criminals in this country, especially that area, are particularly bad.

5 years ago
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