WOW! I cannot believe I missed this thread (but then I am not often to be found in bars - lol!).
I belive all of the stories here.  My experience is limited to helping clients - Brit tourists who were robbed while asleep in their holiday villas (and having been gassed so they wouldn’t wake up during the robbery)… accompanying them to the police stations mainly as a paper excercise so they could claim on their insurance for stolen things.  Only once did the police come out next day- as the clients had rugby tackled the robbers (no gas this time)… and dropped a bag of stolen laptops from various earlier raids…
I was always asked to ‘suggest’ to the client making the denuncia - if they had see the robbers - that they were ‘dark/foreigners’.. (Better for the statistics?/shame that it might be a sp national doing the crime?).

Other encounters with the police have been varied - from officious Guardia at scene of RTA where we were the victims (which their final report totally reflected) - I know they have a responsible job - but we felt like the criminals! 
(PS- I am still awaiting payment for injuries for this RTa - but have been told the court is very unlikely to award more than the current BOE of €600 - but this is ‘how it is’ - even though we all pay car insurance)…

Red tape - don’t get me started!
I have had to make several denuncias in the past year or two (sadly - eventually I left my beloved home due to the threats of the bad neighbours - also Brits - but a law unto themselves)… Whilst I went through the excercise of the denuncia making - there was never any ‘real crime’ said the officer- and although one officer was kind- and told me to phone if I was being attacked - he said they wouldn’t come unless I was being threatened with a knife/such like! 

But then in the UK - I was robbed in my own home, ran the 50yds to the police station and asked to chase after the guy - and told to ‘sit down and make a report’. 

I am a writer and know that all these stories make for a wonderful world - but not if you are on the receiving end of unjust treatment.

My father is a bit of a Daily Mail soapbox worrier/scared type - (their stories are designed to frighten the more vulnerable I’m convinced!).... I had better never tell him about this thread!

Good tidings to you all.  I love my adopted country - for all the good bits.  But accept there is xenophobia, incompetence, even crime commited by those in authority.  But I try to keep my head down and enjoy it while I can.

Regards to all,
Susan

Hi Susan,

Thanks for your input.

I too love Spain and the majority of the people. I’d heard many a nightmare story about the Guardia Civil and other Goverment bodies, but it’s not until your actually on the rough end of it yourself and start to research the problem, you realise just how bad it is.

Warmest regards,

Paul.

Well just to throw a different side into the debate.  First, for anyone who does not know Spain, they need to understand the difference between local police, national police, the guardia civil and the “others” including the secret police.  I refer to this only because one night I was enjoying a quiet beer in town and suddenly all types of police came out of nowhere past the bar.  It was the night a councillor was assasinated by an ETA gunman just around the corner.  Each level of police has its own duties and you certainly do not treat them all the same.

I do not live in one of the touristy areas but have driven the length and breadth of the country and over the years I have come across various officers who have been quite courteous, helpful and far from aggressive.  I crashed my Spanish plated car once and 3 loads of Guardia drove past, stopped, asked if they could do anything to help, assumed we were tourists by our accents but gave us no hassle at all.  Indeed they got angry at passing cars who were not slowing down in response to the red triangles we had put out.  I have been “ticked off” by motorcycle Guardia when driving the moto a bit too enthusiastically, but not at all dangerously and told not to do it again.

My experience for most of Spain is respect the guys for whom they are.  Dont give em stick or argument and try and have all the proper papers to hand.  They even dont check every detail on every paper once they see you do have your driving licence, your vehicle permiso, your insurance etc etc.  Unless you have committed a “muy grave” offence, you get better treatment than in the UK unless you are unlucky to come across a Guardia in a bad mood or one of the bad apples.

Since 1 May this year, Spain has a new penal code for traffic offences and they are cracking down big time.  Consider that they are fighting many thousands of Spanish nationals driving without any licence and often without ITV nor insurance and you begin to accept what they are up against.  If ever there is a drug related incident, they get very heavy handed and you just have to read the mood at the time.  Quite close to home some months back, the Guardia pounced on a isolated house where they captured a huge haul of drugs along with 20 stolen cars all just about to head off for deliveries around Europe.  The fleet of Guardia vehicles out that night was amazing and you could instantly tell they meant business but so long as you got the hell out of their way, all was fine.

El Capitan - 15 July 2008 03:04 PM

The fleet of Guardia vehicles out that night was amazing and you could instantly tell they meant business but so long as you got the hell out of their way, all was fine.

Pretty much sums them up.

With all the incidents they deal with and with the mentality of the Spanish, who, for anybody thats been in Spain living will tell you, will argue with anybody till there blue in the face and that includes arguing with Policia.

If there was a policy of beating, more people would be complaining, but many inoccent Spaniards are aware when and how far too push it.

Problems with foreigners tend to occur in the tourist area`s, when tourist`s seem to be under the impression the same rules for the UK police apply in Spain, they don`t, it is acceptable for a Police officer to punch/push anybody he believes require it.

If a Policia starts to bully you, you`ll just have to accept it.Getting out of the way and not arguing in the first place usually solves the problem.

Came accross this disscussion concerning the allerged murder by Spanish Authorities of a Nigerian immigrant being transfered back to Nigeria in 2007.

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/board/osamuyi-protest-spain/38063-nigerian-citizen-gagged-killed-spanish-authorities.html

Interesting reading how the Spanish treat people, especially when it`s commented by people who have received the attention.

Like i`ve stated before some people do deserve an amount of brutality, others don`t.

I’ve wanted to say this for a long time, but couldn’t because of the “Political Correctness” of the UK.

See you guys in the council estates of the UK who lived off the tax I paid over there… I will give you a sleeping-bag to get home. Over and above that I will wave Bye Bye because I think the Spanish DHSS of 9 months works better in my favour!

Wanna hear a joke?

What do you call the little box attached to your Satallite Dish?....................
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A Council House!

DryWood - 10 August 2008 02:18 AM

I’ve wanted to say this for a long time, but couldn’t because of the “Political Correctness” of the UK.

See you guys in the council estates of the UK who lived off the tax I paid over there… I will give you a sleeping-bag to get home. Over and above that I will wave Bye Bye because I think the Spanish DHSS of 9 months works better in my favour!

Wow.  That is almost certainly offensive, but it’s hard to say because it doesn’t make any sense.

MartCross - 11 August 2008 12:58 PM

Wow.  That is almost certainly offensive, but it’s hard to say because it doesn’t make any sense.

Almost certainly written by somebody who`s English isn`t there first language.

Some of your stories sound like they are about another planet, not the country I lived for a year and will perhaps return to in a couple of months- willingly and happily taking a wife and child. We lived in the Alicante region in an inland town [Not touristy]amongst mostly Spanish neighbours, and I worked teaching English. Perhaps this helped us to become partially accepted as I had the mayors son, and various others as students. We had very friendly dealings with local police but no contact with Guardia Civil who seem to be the ones being accused here. We had it on good authority that most of the local problems originated from 1]Moroccans doing petty crimes as they were illegal and not working 2] Russians living up to their reputation as lovers of vodka 3] Nasty gangs called “latin kings” coming in from Torrevieja. These last were jumped on very heavily to stop them getting established I believe. Students told me that police [Don’t know which variety] were selling drugs in a nearby town, but other than that life was good if you could cope with the lack of haste in officialdom.
The general attitude amongst local people in our town was anti-Moroccan, and acceptance of most other foreigners provided they worked and tried to fit in. I can believe that if we spoke fluent Spanish then we might have been in a position to better understand the finer points of local feeling.
However, comparing Spain to Uk I suppose it depends on your experiences as I had a long and varied life before leaving Britain about 5 years ago. I’ll try to keep these next stories brief-
I once got talking to a man who earned a living as an armed robber in London. He said that the first job was the hardest as it was the one which gave you enough money to bribe your way out of any future problems once you knew which solicitors had police contacts. Officers in the Met CID were known to have sent local plods off on a wild goose chase to give enough breathing space for a planned crime.
In an English town off duty CID bought drugs from local guys in a nightclub. They knew the guys from policing football matches and both sides were happy that the dealings would remain private.
The daughter of a police officer told me that police parties regularly had supplies of drugs and porn films from siezures.
Royal protection police were not always the pick of the bunch- one I knew shot himself in the foot after playing some kind of “Fastest gun in the West” type of game.

Looks like the Spanish police are becoming militarised, they are a service to the general population in theory but in practice act as agents for a corporation whose interest is to collect payment in the guise of fines etc. In general they suffer from attention deficit disorder as any attempt to have any logical discussion is thwarted by their stereotypes and prejudices.

There is nothing they can do for you when a burglar is entering your home or a rapist is salivating over your spouse. If there is no profit in it then I am afraid it just is not a priority due to lack of finance. The tax office on the other hand is extremely well financed and is much more profitable, the poorest link in the chain would be the law courts.

Where they all have something in common is freemasonry which is rife so do your research and things will start to make a lot more sense and you will realize that all the denouncements of corruption only exist so they can do battle with each other and replace certain types, so I stress that it is not for our benefit when they send to prison some crooked official, he or she will only be replaced with someone that they prefer.

Every single country in the EU is losing its sovereignty, identity and freedom. All the immigration issues and Brad Pitt stories etc.  are to distract us away from the real issues and these affect our local authorities which have not realized themselves what is about to happen. Agenda 21 is a mandate from the UN with a definite agenda to introduce by stealth the abolition of private property and rationing and carbon taxes. Please research this for yourselves and make friends with locals and explain to them what is going to happen when this soviet style Europe arrives on our terrazas. Private property ultimately means right to life so it goes a lot further than our belongings. I know this sounds heavy and I would be delighted if you could prove me wrong.

I have worked as a Photographic journalist and have witnessed some police cock up some resulting in death so I learnt not to mess with AUTHORITY. You do not cross that line ever! Why?, because we are not united, we have allowed the Governments to scare us into believing that we are responsible for all the problems and only they can save us. I can assure you that all drugs, all immigration and all psycopaths and terrorists are on the streets because they were put there by the powers that be. Remember you are sovereign and a freeman.