Farewell, Cambs Chief Constable of Apathy

MAY I be allowed to congratulate Councillor Colin Saunderson on his less than amorous comments about Chief Constable Julie Spence and the Cambridgeshire police force, regarding lack of support for his Speedwatch program (Letters, September 1)?

MAY I be allowed to congratulate Councillor Colin Saunderson on his less than amorous comments about Chief Constable Julie Spence and the Cambridgeshire police force, regarding lack of support for his Speedwatch program (Letters, September 1)?

Since Chief Constable Spence took control of Cambs police five very long years ago, the police have become obsessed with ‘target arrest of the month’, paying little attention to other crime occurring in the area.

Whatever this crime of the time may have been, the police have been so deeply, and so obviously, embroiled with their own agenda that it was often a case of ‘wait till next week, and we might get someone out to see you’. In other words, it wasn’t because they couldn’t, it was because they wouldn’t.

I note with some concern that Chief Constable Spence has been praising the 23 per cent reduction in serious/fatal crashes on the A14, and, typically, applauding average-speed cameras as the saviour of the day.

I say I note it with concern, not because the reduction in crashes worries me – because I am delighted at that – but because, if the chief constable had done her research, she would have found for the last two years certainly, purely because of the recession, there has been an approximate 20 per cent reduction in road traffic.

So I think speed cameras, average or otherwise, have had little to do with it. Clearly Councillor Saunderson has hit the nail on the head, and exposed the police not for what they are but for what they do – which is very little, unless they want to.

I await the arrival of the new chief Constable with interest (and impatiently)

PAUL DAKERS

Burstellars

St Ives