Police searches - 'It is good that they are taking regular action'

The fact the police are stopping and searching almost 70 people a day across Lothian and Borders is reassuring for the law-abiding majority.

Edinburgh is far from being a crime-ridden city on the whole, but the police still face significant problems with certain types of crimes in many of our communities.

When officers have a reasonable suspicion that someone on our streets is carrying a knife, gun, perhaps jewellery stolen in a housebreaking or alcohol they are too young to be drinking then it is good to know they can and do take regular action.

This kind of ground-level work by bobbies on the beat is exactly what we need to back up the force's recent success in breaking up some of the Capital's crime gangs.

Of course, it is possible for such powers to be abused but we have seen no evidence of that happening in the Capital.

The dramatic rise in recent years simply highlights a trend in modern policing which follows some highly effective stop-and-search operations targeting specific problems such as knife carrying among young men.

Police forces across the UK have been finding these powers so effective that they have used them more with every passing year since 1993.

That has led to tensions in some cities where young Asian and black men have found themselves targeted disproportionately by the police.

Thankfully, we seem to have escaped such problems here and we can be reassured that checks and balances, including the publication of today's statistics, will ensure the force's use of these powers remains closely monitored.

Harsh lesson

A child going missing has to be every parent's worst nightmare, so it is easy to understand Louise Payne's fury at discovering her seven-year-old daughter, Katie, had been left behind on a school trip.

Thankfully, Katie had the presence of mind to do the sensible thing and ask an adult that she knew for help, and so was safe before her mum knew she might have been in danger.

There is no excuse for needlessly putting a child in such a risky position, but the teachers who organise these school trips must dread the slightest thing going wrong and the huge potential fall-out when it does in our increasingly litigious society.

Whoever was responsible on this occasion must be given a fair chance to explain before appropriate action is taken.