ARNOLD A family who dialled 999 when eight men wearing balaclavas burst into their home at 11.15pm were told by the police that they were too busy to come.

Mathew Sims, 24, his partner Sarah Barham, also 24, and their two children, aged 6 and 5, ran upstairs when the men, one brandishing an axe, smashed the glass in a door that Mr Sims was trying to keep closed.

Eventually the burglars left in two cars after stripping the downstairs rooms of electrical items. Three hours later the police turned up at the house – barely a mile from a police station – in Arnold, Nottinghamshire. Mr Sims said: “The minute we knew these people were in the house we rang the police, but they said it would be at least half an hour before they could come out.

“No one from the police had turned up half an hour later, and when we rang again they said there was no one they could send.”

In a letter to the couple, Chief Inspector Andy Burton said that they deserved an apology and confirmed that an inquiry was under way.

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