Breakfast time on Saturday morning. The normal hubbub of domestic life is interrupted by sudden shouts of anger in the outside world, followed by the tinkle of breaking glass, a thud, then silence. We peer out of the window of our basement kitchen but can’t see anything untoward. We assume the disturbance was either a domestic that is now over (and not worth ogling) or some accident involving builders in a neighbouring house.

A little later my wife goes upstairs for a bath. She returns within minutes. “Don’t panic,” she says. “But someone has thrown a phone through the bathroom window.”

A panel of the sash window is shattered. There are shards everywhere. If anyone had been in the bath at the time they would have been cut to pieces. Lying in the bath is the base of a household phone with the cord attached, having been cut or yanked from the wall.

I stare at the low-rise block of flats behind the house. There is no one in sight. The shouting we had heard points to a domestic argument. Presumably, at the height of the row, a Neanderthal had flung the phone out of one of the flats in a fury. Perhaps he had found his unfortunate wife using the phone when he wanted to call a knuckle-dragging buddy. Or she was talking to her mother instead of making his breakfast. Or — this is the option that I favour — he had overheard her bragging to a mate about her 18 lovers.

I call the police. A patrol car arrives within minutes. They make some inquiries and arrest the culprit.

No, of course they don’t. After waiting in a queue for 15 minutes I am passed from one station to another and then another. Three constables take down full details of what happened, declare it to be a case of “criminal damage” and explain that no, they won’t be sending anyone to investigate. “Sorry.” I am pretty sure the projectile came from a flat occupied by a young couple with a baby and a toddler. But it is impossible to be sure. I want to knock on doors. I rehearse my opening gambit in my head: “Hello, sorry to bother you, but is this by any chance your telephone? Well, I’ve come to re-install it. Shall I stick it here?”

My wife, well overdue to give birth, points out that I have no idea who I’m dealing with except that their ability to hurl a phone a good distance suggests that they would be capable of hurling me a shorter, but not insignificant, distance down the stairs.

I perform the lengthy task of cleaning up with the blind open and the lights on. A tiny part of me wonders if a sheepish figure will appear and apologise. But most of me realises that the sort of people who throw phones through other people’s windows are not inclined to apologise for doing so. The flat of the chief suspects has its curtains almost completely drawn. Guilty, guilty, guilty. As I pick tiny splinters of glass out of my son’s bath toys, talk to the insurance people and watch the glazers fix the window, my frustration mounts.

Days later, I still feel angry and impotent. How are people able to behave like this and get away with it? On a personal level he may be suffering. He doesn’t seem to be around. In the flat a vase of flowers looks like Mr Stone Age’s attempt at a peace offering. But I want to see him grovel at my feet, or the feet of a judge. The letter from my local victim support group offering me “emotional support” and another from the police claiming that “the crime is being investigated”, (er, how?) are not quite what I’m looking for. If anyone has any ingenious ideas on how I might have resolved this situation in a more satisfactory way without suffering physical pain I’d like to hear them.

damian.whitworth@thetimes.co.uk