Police didn't have the money to catch burglars who beat me with a crowbar

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A businessman who was almost beaten to death by three crowbar-wielding burglars claims police haven't carried out DNA tests to identify his attackers – because they can't afford to pay for them.

IT consultant Simon Pither, 36, was savagely beaten over the head when he interrupted the gang at his £300,000 home.

The married father of two sustained such serious skull injuries during the assault that doctors told him he was lucky to be alive.

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Scarred: Simon Pither suffered serious head injuries in the burglary

He had emergency surgery, 40 internal and external stitches and two-and-a-half months of intensive physiotherapy.

Following the brutal attack, detectives took a sample of DNA from under his fingernails in a bid to track down the gang.

But two months after the incident a Scotland Yard officer called his home and said the DNA samples had been returned because the force did not have sufficient funds to pay for the analysis.

Mr Pither said: "The world is run by budgets. It is outrageous and disgraceful."

Commercial DNA laboratories offer similar profiling tests for around £200.

It was Mr Pither's sister-in-law, teaching assistant Sarah Cowmey, 30, who took the call from police while she was babysitting his two children.

She said: "The police said the DNA samples which they had sent in to the laboratory had been rejected because they didn't have sufficient funding, so they would be sending them again within a week or so because hopefully the funding would have come through.

"They didn't ask who I was, so I was a bit surprised that they were willing to give out that sort of information."

The attack took place in January when Mr Pither returned to his home in Norwood, South London.

He recalled: "I arrived and there were two guys standing with their heads round the back of the TV.

"One turned round and asked me what I was doing there, and I told him it was my house. All of a sudden we started to have a bit of a tussle."

Mr Pither, who used to teach martial arts, tried to prevent the men leaving but during the struggle one of them struck him with the crowbar.

He said: "I looked up and saw the guy leaving, and all of a sudden there was blood shooting down my face.

"I walked back in and there was blood dripping on the carpet.

"It was new and I thought, 'My wife will kill me if I get blood all over that', so I went outside the front door and phoned my father-in-law, who lives nearby, and he rang the police."

The three men, who were black and aged between 17 and 25, made off with a camera, an iPod, a watch and some memory sticks.

Conservative MP Philip Davies said: "This sounds bizarre and completely outrageous and unacceptable.

"If dangerous thugs are still at large because the Metropolitan Police cannot pay their tab, we've reached a pretty depressing state of affairs.

"The Met spends hundreds of thousands of pounds each year on diversity training.

"They should concentrate on their first priority: tackling crime."

A spokesman for the Forensic Science Service said: "On average, DNA tests can be turned around in three or four days.

"In urgent cases, they can be turned around more quickly, perhaps taking as little as 24 hours."

In a statement, Scotland Yard said: "We are currently awaiting the results from the laboratory relating to forensic and DNA opportunities that have been taken from the premises as a result of the offence.

"Financial considerations have never had any influence on the way this case has been handled."

 

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