Don’t let the police forces join again

THE police authority are quite correct to reject any form of amalgamation of police forces. In this area those of us who lived in the Isle of Ely county and served in the Isle of Ely county constabulary were, on April 1, 1965, forced to mix with Cambs, Ca

THE police authority are quite correct to reject any form of amalgamation of police forces. In this area those of us who lived in the Isle of Ely county and served in the Isle of Ely county constabulary were, on April 1, 1965, forced to mix with Cambs, Cambs City, Peterborough Combined and Huntingdonshire.

At that time, the Isle force was the fourth most efficient force in the UK according to Home Office records and all that amalgamation achieved was a reduction in our standards because in all cases you can only dumb down never up. Look at the proposed partners, Norfolk who served an ASBO on a pig farmer because his pigs got out, arrested a Yarmouth house-holder for defending his wife and himself against an intruder, and then the Tony Martin saga.

Why is there such a frenzy in the Home Office to amalgamate? Simply this, the present Government party have no love of the police.

We sorted out the miners etc. They actually want to have an organisation that they can control, independent forces and independent chief officers are not that easy to control.

On the matter of the display boards I mighty be missing something here but I was always under the impression that to take the property of another without his or her permission was straight forward theft, or is there a new law that allows this to be done and we do not know about it.

GEOFF SMITH

(ex police sgt 281 Isle of Ely and Essex Constabularies).