IT'S a sad fact that people who deal with the public for a living are quite likely to find themselves threatened from time to time.

And if they collect cash those individuals are open to attack by criminals as well as unruly yobs.

Taxi drivers, for example, are all too frequently faced with physical assault and bus drivers now sit behind the sort of protective screens we are more used to seeing in banks.

Conductors who have to walk up and down carriages, especially on late night trains, are particularly vulnerable to the attentions of drunken hooligans who may have to be asked to stop annoying fellow passengers.

And that's why Northern Rail's move to fit staff with lapel-badge microphones disguised as badges to record the voices of offenders is a particularly good idea.

Their conversations will be picked up by staff at a central control room who will be able to arrange for police to be on the platform when the train reaches the next station.

Last year the former rail operator First North Western reported 80 physical and 60 verbal assaults and a survey by Hyndburn Council in 2000 showed only one in three rail travellers felt safe at night.

This innovative move should allow them to feel safer and send out a message to louts that they WILL be caught and punished.