Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Mindset of Cops: To Avoid Getting Raped Don't Wear a Miniskirt

See disclaimer below* regarding this seemingly daring metaphor

Marilyn Monroe skirt: 'prevent them from becoming a repeat victim.'

Summary: Just 4 hours after escalating the matter of Sirius 'Open Source' fraud to its (previously) biggest client, which oversees police budget, the Economic Crime Victim Contact Unit (VCoA) got in touch with me regarding my Action Fraud crime report (many victims; not handled for almost 10 weeks despite escalation to my Member of Parliament), saying they "offer free [editor's note: taxpayer-funded actually] help and advice to people who have been the victims of fraud and cyber-crime to try to help prevent them from becoming a repeat victim." But we need action, we need law enforcement, not "advice" (action is well overdue, several months already).

MORE than a month ago I received an "(in)action fraud" message that was timed exactly 4 weeks after its submission (weekend outside working hours), specifying nothing about my crime report. I'm certain it was automated. Nobody bothered looking into that and it seems endemic at Action Fraud (it has been even worse for some; they're literally being insulted by Action Fraud; the cops are attacking the victims of crime!** ). On Monday I received the following after Greater London Authority (London Municipality) got contacted, so it's safe to assume someone there nudged the police to stop ignoring victims of crimes committed against staff of London Municipality (by contract; we worked on their system for many years).

Here's a portion of what they sent (some redaction applied) and my response:



Action Fraud Report



ECONOMIC CRIME VICTIM CONTACT UNIT (VCoA)

To: Roy Schestowitz

The Economic Crime Victim Contact Unit (VCoA) is part of the Action Fraud National Fraud and Cyber Reporting Centre service. We deliver a support service for victims of fraud and cyber-crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We offer free help and advice to people who have been the victims of fraud and cyber-crime to try to help prevent them from becoming a repeat victim. We do not investigate crime and we cannot assist in the recovery of any losses. We will never ask you for anything as our purpose is to provide information, help and guidance.

We have received a referral in relation to the report you made to Action Fraud, crime reference number [redacted] refers.


A serious crime was committed. It was committed not just against myself but also against my colleagues. It went on for years. We're not gullible, we are well-educated people who are literate in this domain. There was a chain of enablers in this crime. The legitimacy came from various separate factors, including some which are connected to the government. I can elaborate on this as the need arises.

The perpetrators of the crime have names. They have home addresses. You know where they live. They need to be interrogated and held accountable. The evidence is overwhelming and they do not deny the crime was committed.

If somebody gets raped, you don't simply lecture them on how not to become "repeat victim", you go out there and apprehend the rapist. Here too, a crime was committed, repeatedly, for years, against many people. They only found out about it this year, as there was obstruction and stonewalling, including from pension providers. The accountants and IFA refuse to even answer queries about it. They may be culpable too.

Anything short of action from Action Fraud would seem inadequate. I first contacted the police back in March after it got confirmed to me that a crime had been committed. I am not a law enforcer, so the role of the police forces is crucial.

We're almost in July already. Is it considered normal for a case to take almost 4 months from initial report to action? You say you "do not investigate crime", so who will investigate it and when? When will action be taken?

The message from the Economic Crime Victim Contact Unit (VCoA) -- not from Action Fraud -- came out of the blue as a reaction to escalation to Greater London Authority, GLA. In fact, only 4 hours passed since I contacted GLA on the matter. So it seems that in order to progress these things one needs to have special connections, e.g. working for GLA as a contractor for nearly a decade.



They have not even responded since then. Not a word. They have my postal address, my phone number, my E-mails.

But not a word. My response to them did not bounce, so it's safe to assume they received it.

"My response to them did not bounce, so it's safe to assume they received it."It also worries me that they got a person to respond to me only after months of efforts, including an escalation to my Member of Parliament, a former client (that it in charge of police budget), and public shaming. Not many people have time and capacity to do this. Some are too busy working all day long and are impatient, moody, helpless, and utterly frustrated.

How to get UK Action Fraud to take "affirmative action" against crime***? I can only speak from my own experience.

It goes like this:

"It also worries me that they got a person to respond to me only after months of efforts, including an escalation to my Member of Parliament, a former client (that it in charge of police budget), and public shaming."Contact with crime report/evidence, wait 4 weeks, then escalate to MP, wait 4 weeks, then escalate to London's authorities, then they might escalate to City of London Police (if you worked for London's authorities) and there MIGHT be a chance of them actually taking action. Ridiculous.

If this is how law enforcement works here (or elsewhere****), then I am deeply concerned. This is the blueprint for monarchy-type regimes with immunity and impunity, where police exists only as a sort of "formality". _____ * Regarding the skirt thing, the metaphor is not mine but Rianne's as she found their language rather patronising and offensive. "Not sure the skirt metaphor helps," one person remarked, as "maybe it is better to just say right out that the cops are engaged in victim blaming" and one "might then add that they are patronising and offensive, too, in addition to blaming the victims, as it appears standard operating procedure for them across a wide range of crime categories."

** Remember the undercover investigation of Action Fraud, which was accused of insulting victims instead of helping them. Inadequate training and poor recruitment can lead to such low standards of response. This needs to become widespread knowledge and even mainstream TV (public broadcasting) took note of it in recent years.

*** Cops should really be more than just some folks in uniform with a public-facing Web site. Work needs to be done, otherwise crime flourishes and criminals are emboldened to commit more crime, seeing they suffer no consequences. They become "repeat criminal".

**** As we stated some hours ago, this isn't some "uniquely British" thing. As Ryan from Illinois (United States) recalls: "You might mention that while the police had no time to take a report of Maricel's murder-for-hire scheme and insurance fraud, they had plenty of time to come out and frame me for being the responsible party in a car accident, and they even cited a law and showed a diagram of the accident that showed I did nothing wrong. I still had to pay $700 to fix my car and $400 for a traffic lawyer to beat the ticket. They let people who were on parole in another state that didn't have a driver's license or any form of insurance go. They have plenty of time to come out and frame people they don't like. Maybe the Waukegan police saw that I was gay (there with my spouse) and shoved the ticket in my hand and laughed. Maybe they really are that stupid. Who knows? When you call the police and they show up, they're as dangerous to you as they are to anyone else. They may take no action against the criminal and frame you while they're there. They seem to have a rule in Waukegan that every time there's an accident, someone gets a ticket. It's a way for them to make money. You should see how the traffic courts work here. Boom boom boom. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in ticket revenue. Everyone pleading guilty to something to avoid their insurance going up. The judge doesn't even pretend to care if any of them have done something wrong or they just want it to stop. It's like criminal court only worse. I think I was the only one to fight them and they were so unprepared to stop and handle it that they actually let me go."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025
Genini Links 05/09/2025: Community, ROOPHLOCH, and PITkit
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Vaccine Sceptics Poison the Well, Two Exploited Vulnerabilities Patched in Android
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/09/2025: Logitech Lift and DIY Gemini Servers
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Sainsbury's Caught Spying on In-Store Shoppers and Microsoft "OpenAI is Using Legal Threats to Harass its Critics"
Links for the day
BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Means of Production and Rusting Out
Links for the day
Links 04/09/2025: Science, Hardware, and Eyes on China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
Links for the day
IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
Links for the day
Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
Links for the day
At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News