THERE were three suspicious looking men in my mother's area today. Selling door to door goods, one visited houses, one drove the car and one kept getting out of the car to take a holdall presumably with the full range of goods on offer to houses the first gentleman had visited.

Being concerned, as this area is full of elderly residents, I phoned the local police to inform them, there being a lot of incidents with bogus callers, as suggested by your paper.

I was a little taken aback when not only did the voice on the other end seem to be uninterested in troubling our local police, but she advised me that I could wonder over to them to see if their identification papers were legitimate and phone back if I was concerned.

I was told that I would be ok if these three men were legit, as they would not cause me any problems if they had been sent by the council, as they told another resident who had also called the police earlier. What I need is somebody from the local constabulary to tell me is this - what was I to do if these three suspicious characters were not legit and in fact very dangerous? What is the police force coming to?

To rub salt into the wounds, a police car passed the end of the road five minutes later, and another on his return to the station.

Has anybody any views on this?

STEPHEN MADDOCK

London Road

Northwich