POLICE today said sorry for "falling short of the mark" after a woman waited more than 30 hours for a response to an emergency call.

Fiona Noblet returned home from work at Blackburn Royal Infirmary only to find her garage door, which leads into her house, had been smashed in.

Nothing was stolen and when the single mum phoned Blackburn police she was told officers would be round to investigate.

But a full day later she was still waiting.

She said: "It wasn't until 11pm, when they phoned to say nobody would be coming round, that they told me I could board the door up. I feel really let down. It might not be that important to some people but I couldn't sleep. I was terrified."

According to Fiona, officers assured her they would be around the next day when she finished work at 5pm.

But it was a further six hours after that -- at 11pm -- when the police finally arrived to investigate.

Fiona said: "I've no faith in the police at all. I just think they could have been more helpful. If they had told me there wouldn't have been anyone out to see me until the following day then that would have been fair enough but I was just left waiting and waiting.

"At the end of the day the police are people who you're supposed to look up to.

"They are supposed to be able to give you support and make you feel secure and reassure you. I haven't had any of that."

An attempted burglary is classed as a grade three crime by police, which should merit a deployment within eight hours. For an actual burglary it should be within the hour and if a burglar is disturbed in the house it is classed as a Code one and an immediate response.

Inspector Claire Holbrook apologised for the poor service. She said: "I totally understand the frustration and disappointment Mrs Noblet must be feeling. She has not experienced the level of service that we strive to give, or indeed, that she should expect to receive.

"We pride ourselves on responding quickly to those people who have been victims of crime and in particular, those who feel vulnerable. In this case we fell short of the mark and I will be contacting her to offer some reassurance and address her concerns.

"The only explanation we can give for the delay in deploying an officer is that the cells were full to capacity the previous evening. This meant that officers who would usually be responding to non-emergency calls had to spend more time dealing with prisoners in custody until the backlog had cleared well into Monday evening."