I want to make a report to the police

It might be that the first person you speak to in the Force Control Room or at a local Police Station can help you and resolve the issue for you. If not, then this will be passed to the Crime Management Unit who will review every report and conduct an initial investigation. Sometimes the investigation ends here, and the Police will inform you if this is the case. If you find out anything that might help their investigation - for example if a neighbour tells you they saw what happened - and you did not tell the Police this, you can contact the Police again and they may reopen the investigation. You can provide additional information about the crime you have reported or things linked to it at any time by ringing 101 or messaging the Officer.

An Officer may ring you to talk about your report to see if there is any other information you can provide. The Officer will check your contact details and will ask you some basic questions. They will ask you to confirm what you saw, ask you if you know if there are any witnesses, for example, someone that may have been with you at the time. The Officer may ask you if you know the person who has committed the crime or anyone else that was involved.

• All pieces of information you have that you can tell the police are very helpful.
• After this initial investigation the Police will decide whether to pass your report to another team to carry on the investigation.
• This decision will consider the seriousness of the crime, the available evidence and which department is best placed to deal. This may be a Patrol Officer or an Investigation Officer within CID or another specialised department.
• After the initial assessment the crime will either be closed or it will be allocated for further investigation. This is discussed in more detail in the ‘Investigation’ section.
• Once the crime is allocated for further investigation the Officer in the case (OIC) will recontact you to talk about the crime. This provides you with another opportunity to tell the Police anything else you may know or have remembered. If you require any additional support then please discuss this with the Officer.

The investigation may take a long time to complete. The Officer may be able to give you an idea as to how long but this can change as more information or evidence is obtained. The Officer in your case will also have other crimes they are investigating.