My sister’s next door neighbour has reported her to the police for harassment. I won’t go into the details other to say that I believe that my sister has been nothing but reasonable with the neighbour, an elderly woman who is not in good health (either physical or mental, from looking at the emails that have passed between them). In fact, the rest of the neighbours give her a wide berth owing to her unpredictable behaviour.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the police wrote to my sister to say that the neighbour had reported her for harassment and that she was welcome to view the evidence that the neighbour had provided and comment on it. In the letter, they referred to the situation as a “crime” when it is clearly only an allegation at this stage. They also gave her a crime reference which she can look up on their website and this gives the status as “Crime under investigation”.
This has horrified my sister, who suffers from anxiety, and she now thinks that she’s going to get a criminal record. I think that it’s very unlikely that it will go further, given that my sister is one of three neighbours whose properties border this woman’s property and that she has already reported the other two neighbours in the past - one for harassment and the other for assault!
My question is, do the police usually refer to such allegations as crimes? It seems rather clumsy when it is only an allegation at this stage.
You can report a “crime” and it would be investigated as such, until it’s decided one way or the other as to whether it actually is.
Without knowing the details, nobody would be getting a criminal record until it had gone to court and she’d been convicted of something, which sounds like a very unlikely scenario if it’s involving someone without their faculties about them. They just have due process to follow.
If it’s a genuine concern though, then legal advice would be a good idea to seek just to be on the safe side. Then if it’s a fuss over nothing I’d take them to small claims court to recoup that but that’s just me.
Yes, I’ve pointed out to my sister that she won’t get a criminal record unless it goes to court and she’s found guilty. I’ve just heard from her that she’s spoken to a friend who’s a retired solicitor. He thinks that she has nothing to worry about and that he’d be surprised if she hears anything further about it. He also thought that the letter she received was rather carelessly written regarding calling it a crime rather than an allegation (or alleged crime/offence).
The police probably get a lot of things like this where it’s some kind of petty dispute, feud between people, serial problem neighbours, “old man yells at cloud” type things. The bar for anything that would be worthy of a criminal case being pursued is sufficiently high that you’d know if you’d done something wrong enough to warrant it.
Nope - this is a situation that would usually be settled by a polite discussion with a neighbour over a cup of tea but, unfortunately, the elderly neighbour is somebody who cannot be reasoned with.
My sister has lived next door to her for over 20 years and it’s not the first dispute that there’s been. My sister has also done her shopping for her when she’s been unwell. Things started to go down hill when the neighbour was having disputes with other neighbours and tried to get my sister on her side. My sister politely told her that it was none of her business and that she didn’t have a problem with the other neighbours so did not want to get involved. This was not taken well, unfortunately.
It sounds like it has correctly been recorded in accordance with Home Office Crime Recording guidelines.
As others have said, just because the allegation has been recorded as a crime, does not mean that, following investigation, it will result in a prosecution or even finalised as a positive outcome.
I have a similar issue with a neighbour who goes on one crusade after another about whatever issues she finds either in our building or the local area, keeps trying to rally support from everyone to file complaints and sign petitions and march down to city hall to demand something changes, and then gets hostile if the various texts and phone calls are ignored or if people don’t want to join in. Unfortunately it’s a case of not having anything else to do and wanting to remain busy, and not understanding that not everyone has the same time to commit to it, or indeed that anybody else cares. So if the dispute has come about from that type of interaction then it’s not going to hold a drop of water anywhere if it was pursued and would be dismissed long before it got to any kind of serious action being taken.
I certainly empathise with your sister, though. It’s draining having to deal with people like this.
Harassment is a criminal offence so it’s being investigated but there are higher bars than people think for it to go to court.
Everyone has the right to report what they believe is a crime.
Similarly your relative is allowed to review evidence and counter the arguments.
Crime reference numbers are issued routinely when many times they aren’t resulted in a crime. Nothing to be concerned about there
Interestingly the recent case of a lady being visited by police about her being reported for harassment online was exactly what your relative is getting - they have to inform you if you are reported for it to provide a counter allegation if you want. The media completely distorted what they were there for.
If she is still worried, Citizens Advice can be a great resource. Otherwise without much more information I will say most of these neighbour issues go nowhere close to a court or criminal record.
