A MAN who was threatened with having his house burnt down feels he may be one step closer to justice as a watchdog investigates why the police have done nothing to help him.
Andrew Small moved to Newark Road, South Croydon, in 2009. He decided to get involved with the community as much as possible and ran a campaign to prevent the council from introducing parking charges in his road.
However, he was rewarded with a series of terrifying e-mails from an unknown person who accused him of stealing money from the residents' association and said his garage would be burnt down.
"I phoned the police to tell them about the emails and they gave me a crime reference number," Mr Small explained.
"When I got home that evening, I had a note on my doorstep from the police saying they needed to speak to me urgently. I called them and two officers came round – I thought it would be about the e-mails I had reported.
"But when they got to my house, they said they had received a report from someone saying that a youth was walking around the area with a petrol can asking if anyone knew where I lived."
By this point, Mr Small said he was scared and went to the police station to make a statement.
"My wife was beside herself with worry and naturally we were really upset," he said.
"Then the police issued a harassment order which is just a worthless piece of paper. They didn't decide to investigate the matter or ask for copies of the e-mails to find out more about who sent them."
The Smalls have continued to suffer from harassment, intimidation and fear ever since.
"I have spoken to a lot of residents and it's the same - they have had many experiences but everyone is too frightened to speak out and the police and the housing association have just put up a wall of silence."
Mr Small decided to complain to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in 2011 about Croydon's failure to investigate his claims. They decided he had a case and told Croydon Police to consider the issue.
"But of course, they found nothing to criticise themselves over so I have appealed to the IPCC twice to have the case reviewed.
"Both times my appeal was upheld but referred back to Croydon Police.
"It's ridiculous – how can the force investigate itself properly? Now I have won my third appeal and the IPCC have agreed to send one of their officers to oversee the case."
An IPCC spokesman said: "Following a third upheld appeal from Mr Small on March 15 the IPCC is not satisfied with the Metropolitan Police's handling of the complaint and has taken the decision to supervise a further investigation by the MPS to ensure the points of the complaint are adequately addressed and that the information provided regarding the outcome fully explains the findings and the rationale behind them."
Charlotte Davies, chair of the South Croydon Community Association, said many people in the area had given up on reporting issues to the police.
"It is pointless ringing 101 because reports don't get logged. As a group, we are thinking about creating a phone app so locals can upload reports onto a map to record our own data.
"It's got to the point where we don't trust police or council data."
