Shocking Police reaction to Assault in Hillingdon

1.22.58pm GMT Sat 24th Mar 2007

Last Saturday morning at 3am Cllr Mike Cox was suddenly awoken by a woman screaming. He leapt out of bed and looked out of the window.

A man was dragging a woman violently past the house. After opening the window he yelled at the top of my voice. The assailant looked up, let her go and ran off down the road. Cllr Cox phoned the Police - 999. Cllr Mike Cox who lives near the centre of Uxbridge went on

"I was appalled when I was put on a Police answering machine for about 5 minutes. When I finally got through there didn't seem to be any urgency to get to us and in fact after 5 phone calls from them mostly asking the same questions the victim was told to go home and they would contact her in the morning. We tried to insist they should come as he could still be prowling the area but they fobbed us off saying they may get him on CCTV... we were disgusted!."

Mike Cox has written a letter to Hillingdon new Police boss demanding an explanation. He was contacted and asked to ring a number which when he did the next day was left unanswered.

Cllr Mike Cox said "There is no point having lots of extra Police when serious crimes like this, which so easily could have ended in tragedy, are dealt with in such an offhand and inefficient way"

Cllr Cox got changed and took the victim home in the end.