Broken blue line

STEPHEn gLOvEr’S essay on the police (Mail) was spot on. The public want investigating burglaries, drug abuse, gang crime, knife and acid attacks to be the priority.

Forget dredging up historical abuse relating to dead people; stop hounding people who have committed so-called sex crimes, which may just involve touching a person’s knee.

Part of the problem is that senior police no longer work their way up through the ranks to gain promotion through ability and experience.

Too many top officers come straight from university and don’t have to put in the graft. They have lost touch with what the public require their police force to be — on the side of the law-abiding majority, not criminals.

I have great respect for the ordinary police who go out daily and do their best to protect us. They need leaders worthy of them.

HAZEL PIMM, Clevedon, Somerset. I WAS in the Metropolitan Police for 30 years and,when I joined, we walked the streets for the whole shift. I have lived in the same house for decades and have only twice seen a policeman walking down the street.

Today, they prefer to race by at high speed with their sirens blaring.

DOUGLAS ORCHARD, Twickenham, Middlesex. WHEn a woman driver smashed into the back of my car while I was stationary, I suffered facial injuries, whiplash and temporary damage to my eye.

My pet dog sustained a back injury and had to be put to sleep.

As I was lying in an ambulance wearing a neck brace and with a large gouge on my head, I was given an incident number by the police.

On inquiring months later what action had been taken in relation to the woman who had crashed into me, I was told the officer had logged the incident as a ‘collision without injuries’. She got off without even a caution. KATHY TYRRELL, Kettering, Northants.