SNP councillor left fearing for her life after waiting 29 minutes for police response to break-in

dailyrecord.co.uk:

An SNP councillor has described how she was left fearing for her life when police took 29 minutes to respond to a break-in at her rural farm.Aileen Orr, 71, was home alone in February this year when she was woken after midnight by the sound of two men trying to break into the farmhouse near Paxton in Berwickshire.The Scottish Borders representative raised the terrifying incident at the SNP conference today as an example of the pressures facing Police Scotland, particularly in rural parts of the country.Speaking at a fringe meeting hosted by the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), Councillor Orr said: "I work in a very rural area in the Borders.

Our main town, following centralisation of the police, is Hawick - an hour-and-a-half away."Having a community association with the police is so important for information gathering and everything else that goes with it.

We have some very good police officers in the Borders but very few of them."She added: "I had a break-in on a farm earlier this year.

I rang 999, as these boys were obviously pretty violent, and I had to wait 29 minutes on the phone, literally crying."The person on the other side of the phone was amazing.