THERE'S been a gradual erosion of public confidence in the police force over the years and if a couple of encounters with the police recently are anything to go by I don't see the boys in blue doing much to improve their image.

Last week my partner was driving home from work and came to a halt at some traffic lights on red - out of the blue she was hit from behind as the driver in the car behind her failed to stop for whatever reason. Fortunately she was not badly injured although she is suffering the after effects of a nasty whiplash injury and her car is not the "minter" it once was.

She got out of the car to remonstrate with the driver behind, he gave her a cursory glance, put his car into reverse and sped off without leaving any details or checking if there was any injury - yes I know, what a charmer!

Fortunately his number was taken and there were two independent witnesses who agreed to be involved - the police were called. Nobody has been to see either my partner or the registered owner of the other vehicle and that is nearly a week ago. So if he had some reason for wanting to avoid police detection eg no insurance or being drunk he now can relax in having done that effectively. No explanation or apologies from the police, just a terse inhuman voice on reception (you know the kind) saying they'll get to you when they're ready.

In another incident and another force (GMP this time and not Lancashire) a relative returned from work to discover that her house had been burgled - the door and alarm system had been smashed and the oiks that did it left the place in the usual state. My relative, a 28-year-old-single girl, was instructed to leave the house as she found it while scenes of crime officers could call and check the place for prints and other clues. They never did until they got a call reminding them of the state of the place. "You're not booked down until Saturday," (two days after the event) they told her. Imagine the upset of having to go into a bedroom with all personal belongings scattered all over the floor and not being able to feel secure. If you have a go at them they are defensive and arrogant. They look to blame things on resources and pressure although there seems plenty of spare cash for the latest high-tech equipment for catching somebody doing 80 on the motorway and always seems to be more than enough bods at roadside checkpoints. Naturally I blame the oiks for their crimes but I wonder if they behave in such a way sometimes because they know that the police respond in such a casual fashion?

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