I gave Met Police name and address of the man who burgled me. They did nothing

The Metropolitan Police failed to investigate a burglary despite having the thief’s name and address, the victim said.

Paul Powlesland, a lawyer who lives on a houseboat next to a Met building in Barking, east London, found a bail form with the name and address of his apparent burglar on it following a raid on his home.

The form revealed that a man in his 40s had been released hours earlier from custody on Jan 28 at 9.03pm.

Mr Powlesland told The Times that he had been burgled six times in eight years, and had given up on reporting the incidents to police.

But after he returned home last month to find the padlock smashed off of the yurt where he keeps his belongings, the place trashed, and the bail form, he gave the force one more try.

‘There’s no police, call 101’

However, when the barrister went to his local Metropolitan Police custody suite to ask for help, he claims he was told “quite rudely that there’s no police and to call 101”.

A 101 operator asked if he would consider moving out of the area owing to high levels of crime before saying they would dispatch officers.

Following the call, Mr Powlesland waited until 11pm but no officers arrived.

“When you have got such direct evidence and the police do nothing, you just stop bothering. You just accept that people will get away with it and the law won’t protect you,” he told The Times.

Four days later, after not hearing back from the police, he went to Ilford to report two burglaries that occurred at his property last month.

‘No arrests have been made’

He said officers were “nonchalant” about the bail form and no arrests have yet been made.

Mr Powlesland, who grew up in Chertsey, Surrey, and moved to the area eight years ago to start the River Roding Trust, which cleans up rivers, condemned the force for suggesting he should leave the area instead of tackling the crime themselves.

“Have the police ever thought about investigating it and stopping it?” he added.

Last month, analysis by The Telegraph showed that police failed to solve a single burglary, personal theft or even recover a stolen bike in 30 per cent of neighbourhoods.

No burglaries or thefts have been solved in 10,135 of the 33,970 neighbourhoods in England and Wales in the past three years despite an increase of 20,000 police officers over the same period, the police data revealed.

A spokesman for the force said: “We aim to resolve burglaries as quickly as possible, but understand in this case there were unfortunate delays and apologise for this. An investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made.”