I have had two experiences with the police this year and both times I have come away feeling let down.

My first experience was during an accident when a car hit me from behind. I stopped and was accosted by four youths shouting “whiplash, whiplash”, a very frightening experience.

I went straight to the police to report what happened. The police station in Ricky is in the council offices, there was no access to talk to someone and the machine outside had three buttons. I tried them all with no luck.

The man on the front desk in TR House beckoned me in. Apparently when the police are unavailable a specially trained member of the council deals with any problems. Everything was reported and sent off to whoever deals with the problem at the police.

A few days later I received a summons for not stopping to exchange details! This was eventually resolved, but I never received an apology.

The second experience was when I received a very dodgy email threatening me if I did not pay $7000 I would be exposed for something the criminal would put on the web in my name. All completely untrue. To try to intimidate me they had an old email password which I do not use any more. Very frightening if you could be easily fooled.

My efforts to report this to Herts Police were completely ineffective. The website button on the Herts police website for reporting fraud did not open, I spent over an hour trying to report it by phone, getting many recorded informative messages whilst I waited to be connected, cut off three times.

I finally got through on 101, the man assured me I would actually speak to someone when he put me through. This did not happen as once again I went through the myriad of options finally telling me to go to the Action Fraud button that did not work. I gave up.

I have always had great respect for our police, they do a most important and sometimes dangerous job. Our police forces are disgracefully underfunded by this government and this is one of the reasons why we never get to speak to a real policeman.

The £175,000 wasted by the police commissioner would have been better spent on getting a workable reporting system.

Les Mead

Rickmansworth