ANOTHER of the letters received in response to the Cheshire Police service:

'Dear Vic,

I am writing in response to the recent articles reported in the Macclesfield Express, regarding the new neighbourhood policing scheme. I personally have made several complaints, regarding both personal and work related incidents.

I have been visited by officers from the complaints department, who have outlined how the system operates and although given their apologies, said there was no way the situation could be altered; the system is here to stay.

I can understand the government wanting neighbourhood policing, but it could be implemented in a much better way. The Cheshire system works with a radio system using three different channels, which means only a few officers know of any incident requiring immediate response. Officers could be one minute from a dangerous incident but would not attend, whereas the immediate response team may be 20 to 30 minutes away. It is placing life and property in danger and evidence is bound to be lost due to the length of time taken to get an officer to the scene.

Two of my complaints resulted from the following events:

A short while ago, my 11-year-old son and his 13-year-old cousin were playing on the Congleton Road playing fields. They noticed a man sitting on a wall watching and when they decided to leave the male started to follow them. They began to walk more quickly and the male sped up. They decide (in their words) 'to leg it'.

Being young they moved quickly and although they gained some distance on the male, when they stopped to look round he was beckoning them to go to him. They ran home and told my wife and I.

We got into the car and went to look for the male, found him and followed him to a local address. We did not approach him. On returning home my wife contacted the police and gave them a very full account of the incident, she was told an officer would call and see us that evening, in fact it took a further two phone calls before a police officer arrived TEN days later.

If contacted on the day this male could have been interviewed, however he has still not been found and, for, all we know, may be a paedophile, kidnapper or potential child killer.

The excuse given was the one and only officer seconded to this area had been on annual leave.

The second incident took place at work, where I was threatened by a drunken male refusing to leave the premises. He said he was going to break every bone in my body and kill me, at the time I was in an interview room trying to persuade him to leave and my colleague was stood outside the room.

As the male made these threats he forced the door to the room closed to prevent my colleague gaining access, who then dialled 999 for immediate assistance.

It took 50 minutes for an officer to arrive and that was only after a second 999 call. The excuse was that the initial report was not good enough to warrant a grade one response, (within 15 minutes) and was therefore a grade two response, (within the hour).

My colleague was not questioned by the person who took the call, as to the exact nature and seriousness of what was happening, if he had have been he would have told of the immediate threat of violence.

It appears that unless you definitely know that violence is going to be used no police patrol will be sent to prevent it occurring, it is therefore not going to be long before someone is seriously injured to such an extent as to endanger life, which could have been prevented by a timely police response.

In my opinion the service received from the police is deteriorating rapidly and the only people to benefit are the criminals.'

  • THE views expressed on this page are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Express.