When mugging isn't a crime

A mother who had her bag snatched was told by police it was not a crime - because she chased after the thief and won her property back.

Sam McAlister was queueing in a coffee shop with her ten-month-old son when a woman grabbed the bag from the back of the pushchair as an accomplice distracted her.

Miss McAlister, 34, left her child with staff at the Starbucks cafe, whom she knew well, and set off in pursuit of the woman.

She confronted the thief in a nearby shop and was eventually reunited with her bag after a struggle.

But when she went to a police station to report the crime, she was told by an officer behind the desk that it was not a crime because she had got the bag back.

If she had called the police about the incident they would have said they were too busy and she would never have got her handbag back and the thief would be free anyway. Just what are the police for? Theft is theft. It doesn’t matter if she got the bag back.

The police can be worse than useless sometimes. She would have been better off beating the thief up then making a run for it.