WAS it our friendly local bobbies who were out in numbers on Tuesday morning or had Darth Vader dispatched an invasion force to take over Morecambe?

Take a good look at this week's front page pictures and you've got to admit that it's hardly Dixon of Dock Green.

While every right-thinking member of society welcomes positive action against those who intentionally hurt or harm other people (ie. the criminals) we're getting into dodgy ground when it's the police themselves who become the cause of distress.

From our front page story it's obvious that police intelligence was off-target somewhere and two total innocents were left terrified by the actions of our local constabulary.

Some might say that there are always unfortunate casualties in any war and a glance at our front page pictures suggest that these days it really is a war out there.

It's frightening to think that we now need a small army to police our community. And I always thought Lancaster and Morecambe were friendly places!

If we had old-fashioned community policing with bobbies on the beat do you think they would have ploughed through the wrong doors during their early morning raids?

Of course not. A neighbourhood bobby would know that such and such an address was where vulnerable elderly people live and that the scroat who's been making everyone's life a misery lived upstairs. In fact, if the police are after intelligence, a quick chat with residents down any typical street would instantly produce all sorts of information like where drugs were sold and who's been spotted looking over back walls late at night.

Local bobbies would be given this information whereas strangers in black body armour carrying battering rams and dangerous chemical sprays would not.

Everyone wants more bobbies on the beat so why haven't we got them?

The usual answer is manpower but this seems a bit suspect when they can mobilise a small army for royal visits or important operations.

We need the police, they perform a magnificent job in very trying and difficult circumstances and deserve our support and good publicity (which this paper has always been happy to print)

But as they become more remote, more para-military and less responsive to the ordinary, everyday concerns or ordinary everyday people it seems we're just going to have to get used to the innocents being caught in the middle of the war zone - our neighbourhood.

Criminals and gangsters flourish in a climate of fear and we don't need the police to add to the atmosphere.

Whilst recognising that officers need protecting as they go about their difficult duties surely their greatest weapon is the hearts and minds of a supportive public.

And to ensure that battle is won sometimes it's best to go softly, softly.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.