Ring for appointment, cops tell Briton

LONDON - A Briton who went to a police station to report his car being vandalised was told he must call up first as “you can’t just pop in, you have to ring”.

Andy Bevan, 57, went to Peeler House police station in Hessle, Hull, the morning after his car was vandalised.

“The officer said something like, `Have you rung?’. I said I’d just popped in to ­report it, and he said, `You can’t just pop in, you have to ring’,” Daily Express quoted Bevan as saying.

He was told that information had to be logged at a central command centre that would then give a crime reference number and pass it back to officers.

“I asked, `Are you saying if I saw bank robbers going into a bank I couldn’t come in and tell you it was happening?’. They said that was different, it would be a crime in progress.”

Chief Superintendent of Humberside Police, Paul Davison, said: “If a person wants to speak to an officer within a police station, or arrange a suitable time to take a statement, we can ­provide that facility.”