‘The police are answerable’

• I READ the letter from Michael Newland (It’s obvious that there is widespread distrust of the police, August 7) with interest and will add the following observations.

I have no wish for the police to be anything other than strictly impartial, fiercely independent and efficient in the execution of their duties.

There has been an unwelcome increase in perceived political knee-jerking interference in recent years, which, when combined with agenda-driven attacks at every turn, is not in the wider public interest as far as the prevention and detection of crime is concerned.

The evidence of certain factions taking to the streets at the drop of a hat, including the copycat US behaviour of surrounding police stations and all the rest, is there to see and society as a whole is not improved or safeguarded by these arranged “by-numbers” displays.

We have engineered a society which somehow seems to absolve almost anyone of culpability or, worse, responsibility. And that encourages perpetrators to feel free to manipulate and distort at every opportunity. If the cap fits wear it!

And stop playing the perennial part of put-upon-victim and the hard-done-by. The police are answerable to a complaints supervision, a discipline code, the courts, and, of course, an often hostile story-seeking media.

What other public body answers to accountability in such a varied and always attentive range of critical supervision? Answers would fit the back of a first-class postage stamp.

MARK NEWBERRY
Harcourt Street, W1