CLEARLY, in demanding the resignation of Detective Constable Joe Scanlan, the officer whose birthday party led to the strippergram scandal that rocked Lancashire Police, Chief Constable Pauline Clare is determined that the integrity of the force shall never be damaged in this way again.

But, though two of his colleagues at Accrington CID have been disciplined and fined and up to 70 officers from different forces also dealt with after more than 10 months of investigation into the "sex show" at police headquarters on the night of DC Scanlan's party, his is the only head to roll.

Few would deny the need to restore the probity of the force in the public eye and to spell out a "zero tolerance" warning to its officers on bad behaviour - especially after the plainly lewd and discreditable events of that night became splashed all over the national press and television. Nonetheless, we wonder whether, in view of the circumstances - and his hitherto unblemished record - DC Scanlan has been dealt with too harshly.

Consider the circumstances. It was his birthday. Somebody else, not he, arranged for the teenage stripper to perform.

True, he was an enthusiastic participant in the vulgarity that followed but was he not also pressured by the expectations of the dozens around him that night? How was he to walk away without earning the scorn of those who had set up the event?

That he should have done is not disputed. But his failure to do so should, we think, be measured against the difficulty of doing so.

Is not, then, DC Scanlan a victim of circumstances foisted on him - and, yes, of his own subsequent folly? But a villain? Hardly.

Would it not have been more apt, then, for his career to have been blemished like the others dealt with in the disciplinary inquiry, rather than brought to a halt?

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