It's bizarre! Just what crimes are worthy of 999?

His comments just go to show why the majority of people in our area have little or no faith in the police force.

It is unfortunately all too familiar '“ 999 calls that go unanswered and reports of "unworthy'" crimes, like vandalism, intimidation, theft, etc., getting no more attention than the issuing of a crime number.

The wider public perception of our police is that of cherry picking the easy crimes.

But what is particularly curious about your story is the revelation from Insp Hammond that not all 999 calls get passed to the local officers and that a better way to report crimes might be to phone your local police community support officer directly.

This is bizarre.

I think we had better be told what sort of crimes a 999 call actually works for and on what days, what crimes the local police are interested in and the type of crime they will actually turn out for.

We would then be able to decide when to save our own time and effort and not bother the police pointlessly.

Their lack of response can be as distressing as the crime itself.

Insp Hammond suggested a number of alternative contact methods for Fr van der Most and even said he would deign to talk to him directly about the problems (if they contacted him).

Hotlines for the repeat victim are very nice. Shame it got that far. But what about the rest of the community? How do we get the police to respond?

I sympathise with individual police officers out at the sharp end.

They are torn between trying to do a good job and what their ineffective organisation '“ run by politically sensitive, career administrators '“ dictates.

Steve Harris

Tideway

Littlehampton