A mother says police “must be in a terrible state” after officers closed the case of her son's stolen car within an hour due to "insufficient lines of enquiry".

Louise Morris, 43, reported her 18-year-old son Jamie’s black Ford Fiesta stolen from outside their home in Waltham Way, Chingford, at around 8pm on December 27.

She received a crime reference number by email at 8.20pm and then heard nothing else until 9.07pm, when she was told the case was closed.

A police spokesperson explained there were “insufficient lines of enquiry” to investigate but Mrs Morris believes the thieves left handprints on her own car and may have been caught on CCTV.

Last month, the borough’s top police officer told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he wanted the force “to be judged on how we deal with the average person’s concerns”.

Read more: Waltham Forest police to focus on tackling smaller crimes

Mrs Morris said: “I just find it crazy they would close it so soon. I know it’s not a major crime but they are not even going to have looked for it.

“There’s traffic lights with cameras either way and I did tell them, at the time, there were handprints up the side of my car but they didn’t send anybody to look.

“I told them I’m not going to just let it drop. We might have got it back if they had not closed it so quickly.”

Mrs Morris emailed Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Tucker directly to complain about the lack of investigation and was told officers would interview her neighbours door-to-door.

Two weeks later, when her neighbours said no one had come, she emailed again and was again promised officers would go door-to-door on January 21.

She explained the car was a gift for her teenage son Jamie to congratulate him on finishing his exams and that he had been due to take his driving test this month.

She said: “I feel really sorry for him, he’s such a good boy and he tries to do things for the community like litter picks.

“I just wanted to treat him because he had been through a lot of stress, some nights he was up until 11pm or midnight revising.”

East London and West Essex Guardian Series: Jamie (left), who is interested in politics, with his mother Louise and PM Boris Johnson (Louise Morris)Jamie (left), who is interested in politics, with his mother Louise and PM Boris Johnson (Louise Morris)

Jamie (left), who is interested in politics, with his mum Louise and PM Boris Johnson

In early December, Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Tucker told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he wanted the force to focus on tackling all crimes, no matter how small.

He said: “When I joined the police 35 years ago, we had local cops who knew everyone and solved problems. I want us to go back to that.

“We do really well on big events but I want us to be judged on how we deal with the average person’s concerns.

“We lose (people’s) confidence when we do not deal with an allegation of crime properly. We have got to show that we actually listen.

“We might not be able to deal with some of these issues but we should be able to say we have tried.”

Regarding Jamie’s stolen car, a Met Police spokesperson said they understood car theft “is an unpleasant and very disruptive crime” but that it was “a challenging offence to investigate”.

They said that, “in the absence of CCTV, eye witnesses, or… tracking technology”, officers decided “there were insufficient lines of enquiry and therefore the investigation was closed”.

They added: “These decisions are inevitably frustrating for those whose property has been stolen, but we hope they will understand that police time and resources are finite and need to be directed to cases where this is a realistic prospect of identifying a suspect and securing a conviction.”

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