IN an ideal world we'd not only be able to number every crime, but solve them too.

I've no doubt that Clr Doug Shingler and other councillors, everywhere, are in receipt of complaints that nothing's being done about one crime here or another criminal there.

But as I recall Sgt Vince Morrison saying, here in Weaverham several weeks back, the police need information and persons prepared to be witnesses.

So, while I could feel the frustration, a couple of years back, of standing in a busy police station trying to have a trivial theft recorded, I can at least now see the futility of chasing those public servants down the route of targets and quotas and other bureaucratic devices.

I don't doubt that statistics have their place and, since I've watched them in action, I don't doubt Weaverham Parish Council's sincerity in wishing to rid the village of an unpleasant plague - but I wonder whether antagonising Mr Plod is the right way to go, when he has to operate within the law, can only do anything drastic upon hard evidence, and probably feels just as upset when he can't help as we do.

t's right to regard reporting as an essential first step but wrong to turn it into an attempt to twist arms.

PETER ANDREWARTHA