Valuable lesson learnt

Unfortunately a close neighbour of ours was burgled last night in Beighton. Some scrote smashed in the patio doors and had a good rummage around. These are two of the nicest people you'll meet, so obviously gutted for them.

The reason I'm posting this is that all too often, people tend to ignore house alarms and pass it off as accidental. Unfortunately last night I was guilty of this when in fact there was likely a burglary in progress. In my defence, the house lights were on and the alarm only sounded for 5 mins or so. I presumed that my neighbours were in when the alarm stopped. That said if I had gone round & checked then at the very least I may have disturbed them and limited the amount of stuff they got their scruffy hands on. Absolutely disgusted, and sadly fairly confident they won't be caught.

So lesson learnt for me, unfortunately at the expense of my neighbours.

Yes all true but then you hear of people doing that and getting injured or worse.

Please don't beat yourself up, you sound like the sort of neighbour any one of us would want. I bet we're all a bit guilty of what happened to you. Whilst we do take notice of any neighbours alarms going off, we do find that there are a few rogue ones that are forever on the blink, going off for no reason. After a time its so easy to dismiss and ignore them. Thanks anyway for your post, something we should all take on board.

I would though advise not putting yourself in danger but involving the police.

The alarm going off could have made them leave sooner rather than later, and so not taken as much as they may have done, had the property not been alarmed.

Don't beat yourself up though, you're clearly a conscientious concerned person and good neighbour.

Mikey you sound like a decent person, as said the alarm will have rushed them somewhat and more importantly neither you or your neighbours were hurt.

You're inferring a level of consciousness that the offenders are unlikely to possess. If a 110dB siren didn't expedite them in their plundering, a neighbour isn't likely to have. Truth is, they'll have burgled any number of properties before, alarm or no alarm, and thus won't be fazed by it.

Not your fault, and not for you to worry about it. It is a (sad) fact of life.

Also the law is on the burglars side because if you did apprehend the culprits it would be you done for assault or something like that. The lowlifes would have got a nice skiing holiday to try to rehabilitate them.

There's zero law enforcement for crimes like this these days, its just something we'll have to live with unfortunately.

Also the law is on the burglars side because if you did apprehend the culprits it would be you done for assault or something like that.

No you wouldn't be done for assault, not if you just apprehended them. But if you beat them up and used excessive force then yes, that could be an assault.