'Police have become a glorified extension of social services'

Andy Kerr served with Essex police before being medically
retired in 1990

Many of us retired officers are glad, on reflection, that we're not still serving, having seen the way the police force was and is going. Notice I use the term force and not service - the latter is just one small indication of the changes that have occurred to the point now where the police are just a glorified addition to the social services.

Among the criminal fraternity, the police are a joke; Muppets they call them, and they are right. Among average, law-abiding members of the public too, the police are a joke.

The population is not getting its money's worth from the millions it pays in taxes for a police lip service, a glorified extension to the social services. Violent crime is on the ascent, as are every-day minor crimes, but of course these never get reported so they do not exist. Traffic offences are running out of control, other than speeding as this is controlled by means of the cameras.

I am on the road all day every day, I see non-registered cars being driven by people who obviously have no driving documents. When the vehicle breaks down they leave and go and buy another cheap second-hand car and carry on driving. This is one reason why there are so many abandoned cars around; those who abandoned these vehicles will never be found.

When this sort of driver is stopped by the police (if they should be so unlucky that a patrol comes across them and has a reason, or in fact the desire, to stop them) they give false details. After being given the form to produce their documents, they drive off.

An alternative to driving a UK unregistered vehicle is to buy a car from the European Union area with copied or stolen EU plates. Driving around in that, they will never be stopped by police!

This area of unregistered vehicles is on the increase. I have worked, as a police officer in several EU countries and I know an illegal EU plate when I see one, plus the rules governing them.

The police officer of today in general is less streetwise than his predecessor. Oh he's clued up on people's rights and on political correctness, but for the offender with his/her devious and uncaring mind political correctness is a load of eyewash: these are not reasonable people for whom the law of this once fair land of ours was brought into being. You cannot be reasonable toward unreasonable people: they see reasonability as a weakness, therefore to them the law and the police organisation are weak.

Far too much authority has been taken from the officer on the street by misguided do-gooders, liberals following the dictates of political correctness to the nth degree, and civil liberties groups whose aim is unclear to anyone. All of these groups cause ripples in the pond.

The main fact is that what has been overlooked is that the criminal mind - at whatever level of crime, be it armed robbery to shoplifting or theft by cheating the state - is not a reasonable mind. One cannot therefore treat them as reasonable people.

One last point. Everyone and his dog is told that they have rights, and everyone thinks they know their rights, but most think that only they do. However, for people to live together a society must have laws allowing it to operate for the good of all, while simultaneously placing on people obligations towards their society, again for the good of the whole. But how many people know, or are even aware of, these obligations within the laws of the land, statute or common law, local or national? Very, very few.

What we have failed to learn from is, our past. I do not mean the recent past, or even our national history, but the past history of human kind.

If we replicate periods from the past, our civilisation will collapse for the same reasons that previous ones have. The process is slow, and a society does not see it coming, but the seeds are sown and it will happen if it is not realised before the point of no return is reached. In our case, I believe that the point is only just around the next corner.

In other words, one has to look at the whole picture, not just a small part of it. A decision made by one department affects others far from the area of society for which it was intended: ripples on the pond.

Understanding knock-on effects is a basic in decision making, but I fear we have those in high places - in all aspects of government, local, central, all parties and all countries - who are either ignorant of these basics, or just do not care as long as they are perceived in good light at that particular time, and to hell with the future.

And the police are, at this time in Britain, tied into this political pantomime.

A good police police force is essential; a good police force is not what we have at this period in our history. History will surely tell, as it always does.