Did your parents tell them that there were visible prints available? Cos if they did, that’s a sodding big error on their part. Generally the police’s stance on burglaries is not to attend unless it’s either in progress as speak or there is some sort of evidence such as prints, tools left behind, shoe imprints and even then, you will only get a forensics officer out and not a police officer.

Not saying I agree with it but having done the job for seven years before finally getting out a few months ago, police officers don’t want to be dealing with half of what they end up doing, and they’d much, much rather be going to someone who’s been broken into and providing some reassurance or trying to lock up burglars and genuine criminals. Unfortunately, we ended up spending most of our time dealing with mental health because other services would push the onus onto us...