MSP: I was told to wait four days for police after reporting crime

An MSP has said she was told to wait four days to see a police officer after becoming the victim of a crime.

Reform’s Amanda Bland, a former police officer, said she waited 25 minutes to get through to police before being told she would have to wait four days for a visit.

But after making a “fuss”, the Central Scotland and Lothians West MSP said she convinced officers to meet her.

She said when the officers did arrive, they criticised Police Scotland and explained “how bad it was” in the force.

Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee heard that police are being diverted from their core duties by the rise in mental health-related calls.

Ms Bland said Scotland’s national force is in “crisis”.

She said: “Very recently I phoned the police and I waited 25 minutes and I actually needed help, and the police said to me, ‘The police officer will come out four days’ time’ and I said, ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about’, and they said, ‘We just don’t have police officers’.

“Because I made a fuss, two police officers turned up.”

Ms Bland said she feels the force is at “absolute crisis point” after hearing criticism from the officers in her case.

She said as a victim of crime she felt sorry for the officers, who she said had acted professionally.

“They said ‘we do not have the capacity’,” the MSP told Holyrood. “And 25 minutes? They said ‘you’re lucky, it normally takes an hour.’”

“That is a conversation I would never have had with a member of the public,” she said of her time as a police officer.

She said the committee needs a “reality check” and that the “reality” of policing could be “absolutely painful”.

Scottish Police Authority chairman Alasdair Hay told the committee that supporting people in mental health distress occupied the equivalent of 481 full-time officers over a year, putting pressure on the service’s ability to carry out its core duties.

Chief Superintendent Derek Cree told MSPs that frontline officers were unlikely to have felt the benefits of changes intended to reduce the demands placed on police by such incidents.

He said the impact so far had been minimal, adding: “We’ve probably almost exhausted a lot of our options.”

Asked when officers could expect to notice a difference, Mr Cree said he hoped this would happen within three to six months.

Assistant Chief Constable Catriona Paton said police had become the default response to people in distress because they were available 24/7, even when other services would be more appropriate.

Mr Hay warned of the impact of increasing workload on officers, telling MSPs there were “lots of indicators that tell us that Police Scotland’s an organisation that’s under stress”.

Ms Paton was told by Tory MSP Stephen Kerr that police were “running shifts across Scotland right now on a continuous basis that are below any kind of recognisable safety level”.

But she told him: “No, we’re not.”