Hello, Police Emergency. How can we NOT help you.......

Mary-Jane Duncan is very angry, and with good reason. A senseless act of vandalism has left her devasted.

It all started when I came home from work early as I wasn’t feeling great. Thankfully I have a great boss and some hours owed to me. I drove home for a much-needed Mamma-nap (as my kids call them).

My husband and I had tickets for a gig in Perth, and there was no way I’d manage without some downtime in between.

Reasons to be very angry….Photo: Keith Ellwood/Wikimedia Commons.

I headed straight for the couch, threw on a blanket, grabbed my “hotter-doggy” bottle to warm me up, and drifted off. I was sure I’d feel better soon. I wasn’t ill, I was simply a day away from finishing this current cycle of Capecitabine, my oral chemotherapy treatment.

As this is cycle number 94, it does take me longer to recover, and I am prone to bouts of fatigue.

Unfortunately, when I woke, I still couldn’t face the idea of driving on a dark, miserable night to Perth, especially with the shocking roadworks going on at the moment.

Little did I know what would happen next. I didn’t keep resting. My overactive mind decided that if we weren’t going to the gig, I’d need to do something else to make up for it.

I thought I’d run errands and grab something for dinner at the same time. My husband sighed, realised there was no talking me out of it, and headed for the coat rack.

The look on his face…

I followed him outside, only to meet him coming back up the path. The look on his face told me something was wrong.

Someone had smashed the back window of my car, leaving the rear glass completely shattered and the bodywork badly damaged.

A senseless act of vandalism, and for what? Picture: Mary-Jane Duncan.

I couldn’t believe it. Had someone crashed into it? Or had I left something visible that could have been perceived as valuable? No, I hadn’t.

Snapping into his usual emergency services role, my husband was already on the phone to 101 as I stood there dumbfounded.

I’d only parked the car there a few hours ago. I’d only just got her a few weeks ago - a long-awaited Motability car. I waited for Police Scotland to answer while he started going around the neighbours.

One neighbour had heard an alarm but hadn’t checked, seeing it wasn’t their car. Another heard the incident but didn’t witness it - just a loud crash followed by silence. A third neighbour offered to check their doorbell CCTV.

Meanwhile, I relayed the details to the control room operator: what, where, and when. The only things we didn’t know were who and why.

After my neighbour reviewed the CCTV, we had an answer to how and partly to who.

There was the evidence

A man had taken a nearby traffic cone and smashed it through my car’s rear window before running off. Why he did this remains a mystery.

However, we did have a description, and the incident was caught on CCTV. I called 101 back and asked them to update the incident with this new information. Still, it only merited a phone call back at some point. No problem.

We set about cleaning up the mess and arranging recovery via our insurance.

Ironically, a few minutes later, a Police Scotland van with two officers inside did a slow drive past, watching what we were doing.

Things get surreal

They didn’t stop; they just drove on. We didn’t flag them down, assuming they were on their way to a more urgent incident. We stood beside my car to ensure nobody drove through the glass, gawping at them like a pair of eejits who had never seen a panda van before.

My husband continued the clean-up. The road, the pavement, the boot, the inside of the car - there was glass everywhere. He’d certainly made a decent job of it. I set about knocking on doors to ask more neighbours to check their CCTV.

It was a cold and long night, but the kindness of folk is always heartening.

One neighbour offered a garage to store the car overnight. Another offered to drive me to and from my upcoming hospital appointments. Others brought us hot tea, helped with the clean-up, and even offered a nip of brandy.

Kindness never fails to soothe the soul. It’s just a car, after all - a material possession -and thankfully, nobody was hurt.

He kept coming back

And yet, someone exactly matching the description of the man on the CCTV kept walking past the car. I asked my husband how many people in our village could be wearing that outfit that night.

We watched him as he walked past, changed his route several times, and eventually doubled back. Convinced, due to his clothing and his strange behaviour, that he was responsible, we called 101 again.

I told the call handler that we now had images of the suspect and that someone matching the description was hanging around the house.

He called me by the wrong name three times and continued to insist there was nothing they could do.

I asked whether I should hang up and call 999 instead - would that merit a response? After all, officers we knew were in the area could surely attend. This was a Monday night, not the chaos of kicking-out time at the weekend.

We know the drill

Please know my husband and I are painfully aware of the pressures police and support staff are under.

We know first-hand the ridiculous expectations placed on the emergency services, the stripped resources, the long hours, and the difficult conditions. None of this is news to us.

And yet, here we had an ongoing situation that didn’t seem to merit anything beyond updating the incident log.

MJ’s car is carried off, her means of getting to the hospital for her regular treatment is taken away. Photo: Mary-Jane Duncan.

I’m not proud of the fact that I laughed when the call handler informed me I could be charged under the Misuse of Telecommunications Act.

“Aye, really pal? Okay then, on you f*cking go.” I didn’t say this, but it nearly caused me an aneurysm trying not to.

After being placed on hold for another 10 minutes, I hung up.

The suspicious male realised we were watching him and left. What was the point?

My lovely car was collected by the recovery man just after 11pm. Off it went to be repaired and hopefully returned as good as new. When? I don’t know. How much will this cost us in excess? Again, I’m unsure.

It’s the little things

The police finally called back two hours later. All I can say is they’re lucky my permanently calm and collected husband answered, because when I heard, once again, they’d asked to speak to “Mary,” I just about lost my sh*t.

Getting someone’s name right might seem like a small thing, but it’s really not that hard. Apparently, two officers would attend at some point, the day after. I’m not sure what for, we no longer have eyes on the person believed to be responsible.

Rationally, I remind myself it’s just a car. Nobody was hurt. It doesn’t seem to have been targeted. And yet, I am surprisingly devastated.

I feel let down

This car was mine, meant to take me safely to and from my upcoming cancer treatments. Regardless of what issues this chap has, he had no right to damage it, cause us distress, and cost us money.

As for Police Scotland - having known so many brilliant people working within the organisation, fighting to do the job they chose under ever-increasing pressures - this is the first time I’ve felt let down by them.

I’m just glad the officers attending won’t have to deal with frustrated, overtired Mary-Jane; she’s not very nice.