IT is a pity that Home Secretaries do not follow the advice of one of their predecessors, Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert, who founded the 'New Police' in London in 1829, declared that his policy would be to show people that "liberty does not consist of having your house robbed by organised gangs of thieves".

One of the first commissioners appointed also stated that "the primary object of an efficient police force is the prevention of crime, the next the detection and punishment of offenders when crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of the police must be directed with the advent of the 'Bobbies on the Beat' policy".

The police officer was no longer a member of an alien force, but became a respected member of the community as well as a public arbiter and ally to the weak and disadvantaged.

The beat police officer, working from a home environment, covering a workable area and not the vast areas of beat expected of police officers today, encapsulates those very fundamental problems that would help to bring back stability to an ever increasing law and order issue.

Coun Kenneth Bowker,

former York police officer,

Linden Close,

Huntington, York.