I'm fortunate enough to live in an area where there is little to no crime, I don't know if the police round here would have got a prosecution, but they would have done something, the van driver would not be pratting about on the pavement any more, I doubt the OP would be complaining. The police round here nip this sort of crap in the bud, hence it is an excellent place to live.
Unfortunately due to cut backs, the powers that be will undoubtedly reduce the police in my area until our crime rate starts to teeter on the unacceptable. If we started paying the police a realistic wage and had them work until they were 65 - 70 like the rest of us, then we could all have a level of policing that could deal with the minor stuff, get rid of the minor stuff and the big stuff will vanish. Unfortunately our country is going down the pan due to the utter greed of the public sector.
Sounds like a great place to live Reiver, you must be very happy with the way policing is dealing with issues in your community.......
but wait, your second paragraph appears not to be so enamoured of the way things are going...... ah yes, the old "work until you're 65 or 70" bit. Well, I can't think of many 65 to 70 year olds that would be very safe or comfortable running to deal with a pub fight, or facing a group of teenagers with a few cans of stella on board intent on a bit of mayhem.
Perhaps we could give them office jobs and pay them a "realistic" wage to do a clerk's job.... that would be a good idea....oh wait, we did that, and then forced them to retire, then we employed civilian police staff, and now have made them redundant. Oh shoot...and it all seemed so simple from behind a keyboard! Oh well, I'll just watch the 11 percent of my hard earned wages paid in for the last 25 years get washed down the pan so that people like you can rejoice that my "gold-plated" pension (did you read the 11 percent bit?) is now being taken away from me, together with my general health (did you ever do year after year of shift work on a 6x2,2x10,10x6 pattern?), my family and social life, having to adhere to a code of conduct on and off duty that restricts where I live, where I travel, who I associate and socialize with, my right to take an active part in politics.......
Yes, it's all pure f*cking greed.