Fight for cops ...before they vanish for good

Well done to The Mail on Sunday for revealing the shocking low numbers of officers on duty at night across the country.

As a serving officer, I am aware of the situation, but how many people really know the police are in trouble? How many realise that police budgets have been slashed by 25 per cent and there are 20,000 fewer officers now than there were six years ago? How many know we have gone back to numbers last seen in the 1970s?

Take a look at your council tax bill and see how much you pay for your police. You are absolutely entitled to demand a good service. Where are the protest marches to save the police? It might not be a cool thing to do, but we are your police and it’s time to fight to save us because you’ll really miss us when we’re gone.

Alfie Moore, Scunthorpe

As you reported, in London after dark there is just one police officer on duty for every 11,000 people.

Once the Metropolitan Police were the pride of London. Bobbies patrolled the streets, kept the peace and were much feared by villains. But where are they today?

While coming back late from a dinner with a friend in Fulham, we saw a young lout, obviously as high as a kite, hurling a brick at the window of a jewellery shop. I dialled 999 and got a recorded message. Imagine if I saw a much more serious crime, such as someone being attacked.

Sir Robert Peel would turn in his grave if he knew what was happening today.

Simon Murray, Hong Kong

I am not surprised to learn about the lack of police to protect people in our cities and towns, leaving citizens to provide for their own safety.

My sister, Claire Oldfield-Hampson, was killed by her husband in 1996 but it was only after the family did our own investigative work that he was charged. In 1998 he confessed to killing her after an argument and was sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter, which was cut to four years on appeal.

Joanne Bryce, St Ives, Cornwall

Why does the Government think that it can leave villages and towns without 24-hour policing? Police stations were built in towns and villages for a very good reason.

Jane Page, Haslemere, Surrey

When did you last see a policeman on the streets, other than on a Friday or Saturday night dealing with drunks in town centres?

Graham Duffy, Preston

You cannot get a better example of how those at the top are out of touch with the rest of society than your story last week of Tory crime tsar Alison Hernandez posing for a selfie with Devon’s Chief Fire Officer in front of the blaze that destroyed England’s oldest hotel, the Royal Clarence in Exeter.

D. Courtney, Weston-super-Mare