As you all know, my house in Ghana was burgled some years back (twice), the first time I went to the police, the second time I didn’t  bother. My expectations of Ghana police are low and so all I can advise to anyone who is a victim of such crime, get adequate theft insurance cover (can’t tell you how well that works though). I have also been on the wrong side of the Ghanaian law, not a serious offence but know full well that 9 times out of 10, the only reasons why the jails are full is because they had no means to pay their way out of it (in my opinion).

In the UK, my expectations were quite high, I say were because they have managed to change my mind in one simple incident.

Amongst all the other issues I encountered on my return, I managed to become a victim of crime. This time, identity theft, some clever person decided to use my details to obtain a credit card and a mobile phone. For the mobile phone, I know exactly who it is, but I don’t know at what point the details were transferred into my name. I am guessing when this person decided to upgrade the phone and then leave me with a £142 bill and a bailiff’s summons for non-payment. My gut feeling is that this same person took out a credit card and decided to go on a jolly on my expense leaving me with a £1,500 fee. Looking at the modus-operandi I am fairly certain that this person knowing that I was out of the country used his criminal means to enjoy life at my expense and it is because of this person’s criminal activities that I cut all ties with him years ago.

However, this is not a blog about my criminal ex, but my dealings with the law. On Sunday after church, I went to the local police station before heading home to report the crime. A very nice young lady behind the counter wasn’t really listening to me but told me that it would be wise to go to my local police station in case I had to go back for any reason.

So yesterday I left work and thought I would pass by the police station and report it, foolishly I thought that I would be seen to as quick as I had been on the Sunday, but I am guessing that there is less crime where I went to report the incident the first time. I got there and there were two reception points. I was probably about forth in the queue and 20 minutes later I found myself at the front. Then as luck would have it, after the person in front of me left to go the black lady behind got up. Not only did she get up, she put her hand up like “oh no you don’t I am out of here”.

So there I was, two counters but only one person filling out the reports. The man who was being seen to must have gone through a whole lot because not only was he narrating what was a very long story but he was also physically demonstrating what was happening. It was all through a sound through screen so all I could see was this guy walking up and down and throwing his around while a very bored officer was typing very slowly. I could tell the officer was bored because his chin was resting on one hand and he was using the other hand to type with one finger taking 5 minutes to type one letter.

Every 5 minutes an officer would come out asking for random people, then she would ask if anyone had come to sign on for their bail, then she would go back to whatever she was doing. There was one officer who would come out and look at the queue then go back to doing nothing, a few officers in the back chatting, meanwhile there was a queue going out the door,

After an hour, I just had to go, the guy being seen to, did not look like he was going to leave until he went over every detail of his incident which was probably the same length of time as the actual incident itself. It was getting late and I had to eat something before I passed out, so I may try again on a day when I have nothing to do the whole day.

Alas, I would have probably been seen to quicker if I had gone across the road, shoplifted a couple of products and got myself arrested.