A surprise call

I'm back in the UK at the moment on holiday. Whilst here, I've taken the time to visit the parents; the consequences of not doing so are definitely worth avoiding.

Yesterday the phone rings and my mother asks if I can answer it. I pick up the phone to be greeted as follows (I will alter the names of all the participants):

"This is PC Smith. Can I speak with Mr Jones?"

"He's not here" I reply. "Can I take a message or get him to call you when he gets in?"

"He is supposed to be at X Magistrates' Court today. He was a witness to a traffic incident."

I looked at my watch. It was 11:30am.

"What time was he warned to attend?" I asked.

The officer hesitated slightly and then said "The trial was due to start at 10am but the prosecutor needs Mr Jones before the trial can start".

"Yes, but what time was he warned to attend?" I pressed.

A slightly longer pause before the officer continued: "We believe that the witness care unit called him about 2 months ago to tell him of the date and time."

And so the picture began to materialise. No-one knew whether he had, in fact, been warned to attend and, even if he had, it was "believed" that that occurred about 2 months ago.

"I will try and reach him" I said "and will call you to let you know. What number can I reach you on?"

"Dial 101 and ask to be put through to PC Smith at X Magistrates' Court."

"Ok" I say. "Goodbye".

I try to reach Mr Jones through several avenues. His mobile phone is going straight to voicemail and the few family members who I thought may have known of his whereabouts, didn't.

So I call 101 and ask to be put through to PC Smith at X Magistrates' Court.

"Does anyone know the number for X Magistrates' Court?" I hear the operator hollow in the background. It seems that nobody does and, somewhat incredibly, I am told that they don't know the number and suggest I look it up on the internet. Charming.

So I look up the number and call the Court. I'm put on hold for about 7 minutes whilst the officer is located. The officer then proceeds to tell me that I should not have called the Court directly and that I should have, as she had asked, gone through 101. As you can imagine, I am thus far wholly unimpressed with how this little exchange has been going.

"I did call 101- they didn't know the number. They were not prepared to find it for me and instead helpfully suggested that I look it up on the internet."

"Oh" replies the officer. "I am sorry about that".

Anyhow, I explain that I can't locate Mr Jones and that I do not know where he is. The officer then proceeds to tell me that his evidence is crucial and that the trial can't continue without him. Quite what she wants me to do about this I don't know.

"Can you continue to try to reach him and call me in 20 minutes to let me know if you have managed to get through?"

"Yes" said I. "How shall I reach you?"

"Dial 101" she says "and give them this extension...".

So I try and reach Mr Jones, fail to do so, call 101 and give them the extension. I come through to a different officer who says that PC Smith is in Court. He takes a message from me and says that he will get her to call me. She never does.

As of yet, I don't know what happened in Court. I'm tempted to call to find out.

I did, however, manage to speak with Mr Jones in the afternoon. He tells me that he had never been given the date of the court hearing and, had he known of it, he would certainly have attended. I have no reason to believe that he is lying about this and from the way the officer spoke on the phone, I strongly suspect that he hadn't been warned to attend. Furthermore, I didn't find the police particularly helpful. When I am giving up my time to assist them, the least they could do is put me through to the Court and not have a go when I choose to phone the Court directly. Also, quite why they were only phoning at 11:30am when the trial was due to start at 10am, I don't know.

If I find out what happened at Court, I'll be sure to add it by way of postscript!