Family in hate attack had to wait 7 hours for police
A POLISH family had to wait seven hours for police to arrive as they suffered sustained racist abuse and vandalism.
Marlena Pakula, 38, and her husband Lukas, 34, say they called the police eight times before officers finally came to their flat.
The couple and their two children – David, 17, and nineyear-old Alan – were out walking on Saturday when teenagers launched an unprovoked verbal assault.
The yobs then smashed eggs against the family’s car outside their home in Edinburgh’s Wester Hailes.
Mrs Pakula said there were up to ten teenagers hurling abuse at her terrified family. But officers turned up only once they had gone.
The freelance interpreter added: ‘This was unprovoked, we don’t even know the people that were shouting at us.
‘They were saying such horrible things. We are a quiet family and have lived in the flat for nine years, with no bother.’
Mr Pakula phoned police from the flat, but had to call a further seven times as the teenagers kept up the assault.
Mrs Pakula suffered further abuse when she took pictures of the Mazda MK2, which had a window smashed and its convertible roof slit open.
She said: ‘The car was our son’s who is 17 and has been learning to drive. We only bought it a few weeks ago for him.’
Neighbour Ian Harvey, 60, said: ‘They are such a lovely family, they don’t deserve to be treated this way.’
The police finally arrived at 11.18pm – seven hours after the first call at 4.20pm.
Mrs Pakula said: ‘We were waiting so long for the police to help us. They told us they had more important issues to deal with. This shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
‘My family were so scared and to be honest, we just felt really helpless.’
Lothians Tory MSP Miles Briggs said: ‘To make a terrified family wait more than seven hours in these circumstances is nothing like good enough. It will have made a harrowing ordeal significantly worse for the victims.
‘The police need to respond far more quickly than this. These awful cases need to be tackled early and the message sent out that such acts will not be tolerated.’
A Police Scotland spokesman said officers were unable to attend sooner due to ‘a number of ongoing incidents which required a high-priority emergency response’.
He added: ‘Police were deployed at 11.18pm.
‘As is standard procedure, we will review the full circumstances surrounding our response to this incident and take any appropriate action required.’