Police failings

As regular readers of the letters page in this newspaper may have noticed I am no fan of Sir Stephen House; in fact, I have in the past complained about him to the Court of Session, and am currently complaining about his personal actions to the police authority.

But, whatever else comes out of the investigation into the police’s failings in the tragic death of two people in a motor accident, I doubt very much that it will be attributable to the policy decisions or leadership of the Chief Constable.

That there have been failings in the actions of the police following a reported road traffic incident is glaringly obvious, but those who would opportunistically pin blame on to the head of Police Scotland would be akin to asking the head of the Health and Safety Executive to resign if a worker was killed in an accident on a Scots fishing boat off Iceland.

Let us get the facts before apportioning blame and calling for resignations.

Tom Minogue

Victoria Terrace

Dunfermline

I wrote earlier this year on this subject and I can understand the criticism of the police following their failure to deal with the car that went off the road near Stirling, with tragic consequences.

On Tuesday night we had another experience of how ineffective the 101 service is.

We saw a theft taking place at 11:30pm and immediately called 101. Two hours later, no officers had appeared, so we gave up and went to bed. Once again, criminals have got away with it and will no doubt be emboldened by this to commit more offences.

It really is not good enough.

Alistair McEwen

Cramond Brig Toll

Edinburgh

It is high time that Police Scotland’s Chief reversed his decision to stop working with Skywatch, or Civil Air Patrol, as it is now known.

Light aircraft are often flying and can divert to check out emergency situations, search for missing people, vehicles, vessels etc. They can even check motorway routes for mishaps reported.

Mike Scott-Hayward

Kemback Bridge

Fife