I READ through the GUARDIAN last week of over a dozen cases of crime being committed in the Crewe area.

One cannot help remembering the ram-raiding of the town centre jewellers, hijacking of the security vehicle visiting a town centre bank, the number of day light and evening muggings - and not a policeman in sight.

And yet yesterday evening my 38-year-old son and partner were stopped on their way from my home by a police person, breathalysed and threatened with immediate arrest if the reading proved positive, and all because one of his three tail-lamps had gone out on his two-year-old car.

As a law abiding citizen and non-drinker he was really upset. As someone who served in the occupying forces of Germany soon after the war, when I suspect most of our current police force were not even born, I cannot help reminding myself of the tyranny which overran that country - and all in the name of justice.

As a senior citizen living in a small town who contributes nearly £100 towards its' policing I find myself with the dilemma that under the current policy of policing I am too frightened to walk alone through Queens Park during the day and I now fear the threat of being arrested if I visit the theatre at night.

Name and address supplied.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.