A TRAUMATISED Greenock mum has told of her astonishment after bungling drugs raid police destroyed her front door with a battering ram by mistake.
Kirsty McArthur burst into tears at the sight of the damage done as officers thought they were forcing their way into the flat of a suspected class A narcotics dealer.
Mum-of-two Kirsty, 37, said police swooped on her Nicolson Street home at precisely the time she would normally be leaving to take her two young daughters to school.
She told the Telegraph that is was the SECOND time officers had mistakenly targeted her property, following an incident at a previous residence on Mearns Street in 2020.
Kirsty said: "I rushed home after my neighbour texted me to say they'd put my door in.
"The lead officer told me that it was his call and that there was never any intention of them knocking — the door was always getting put in and it was a big red battering ram thing that they used.
"I said to him that they would have caved my daughter's head in because where they put the door in is head level with my wee one.
"He just looked at me and said, 'Well be thankful that never happened then, eh'.
"I said obviously I'm thankful it never happened but my door should never have been put in in the first place."
Kirsty — whose sister had picked up her girls Lexii, nine, and Lacii, six, because she had an early meeting at work on the morning of the raid — added: "When the joiner arrived he just looked at the door and said, 'What am I expected to dae wi' that?'
"I said, 'I honestly don't know'.
"The police officer asked if he could just patch it up and the joiner said, 'The door's destroyed, she needs a new door'.
"Not once did the officer at the scene apologise.
"I couldn't believe the same thing had happened to me again."
Police battered their way into Kirsty's home as part of a wave of orchestrated raids across Greenock on February 24.
The flat they should have hit — and eventually got to — was the one above.
Kirsty said: "I feel that the way the officer was speaking to me was as if they weren't in the wrong.
"I could not sleep for thinking about what could have happened.
"I understand that mistakes happen but that's twice now that the police have picked the wrong door.
"They put my front door in when I lived at Mearns Street in July 2020.
"Just the way that officer carried himself, he was so smug."
Kirsty later received a call from a senior officer in Paisley who apologised for the mistake and told her he would get quotes for a replacement door.
She said: "He was so nice and so apologetic.
"He said, 'It's been a mistake, we don't know that area and we've been told to go to the first floor'.
"There's a basement here in our building so that's where I think the mistake's been made."
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "On the morning of Friday 24 February police executed a series of warrants at several properties in Greenock.
"As part of this activity, a team of officers on Nicolson Street damaged the door of a neighbouring property in error.
"The homeowner has been issued an apology and suitable guidance will be provided to the officers involved."
