No straight answers over police payoffs

YOUR Editorial (Yorkshire Post, Octover 6) quite rightly questions whether the Home Secretary should review the morality of payments to disgraced public servants.

The sacking of Sean Price adds to the already appalling list of scandals involving chief and senior police officers up and down the country. In this region we await the outcome of further investigations in connection with Cleveland Police and the fallout surrounding the Hillsborough tragedy.

In my requests for answers following the Grahame Maxwell scandal, I have received only the usual goverbabble, public sector waffle, irrelevancies and self-congratulatory clichés. North Yorkshire Police Authority’s account of the matter describes the whole affair as a “minor distraction”.

We must be grateful that, in blowing their trumpet, they stop short of claiming to have invented sliced bread and putting a man on the moon.

I regret to say that I have yet to receive a straight answer from my MP.

While you are right to suggest that pay-offs and pension arrangements are subject to contractual obligations, what part of the contract permits misconduct, gross or otherwise to be treated either lightly or as a trigger for reward?

In answer to your question, rather than a mere polishing over of the systemic fissures that permeate the police, which addressing such payments would be, the time has surely come for a wholesale change in the way that the police forces in this country are organised.

Successive governments have shied away from this for too long and the upcoming police and crime commissioner elections are only likely to delay this and muddy the water for some time to come.

Taxpayers and, in particular, the estimable rank and file of the police deserve better.

From: Michael Green, Baghill Green, Tingley.

I MUST admit that I rated Sir Norman Bettison as one of the better chief constables at the present time (Yorkshire Post, October 5).

But since he chose to 
respond to the independent Hillsborough inquiry report in terms which could be understood, and indeed were understood by many, to amount to a dismissive rejection of its findings, maybe he had no choice but to agree to go.

Heaven help us, when his successor is appointed (as 
will surely happen) by a political police commissioner seeking the comfort of a politically sympathetic chief officer.

What price independence 
then?

Children 
need support

From: John Eoin Douglas, Spey Terrace, Edinburgh.

IT is glaringly inconsistent for some government ministers 
to seek to reduce the abortion rate by dropping the 24-week limit while supporting penalisation of the children 
of unemployed parents 
through targeted cuts in the benefits system.

If the survival and welfare of children is crucial, then 
economic support should be available as a practical alternative to abortion.

Location and education

From: Brian Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

I AGREE wholeheartedly 
with Rodney Atkinson that with comprehensive schools 
“Labour created... an 
elitism, not by ability, but by location” (Yorkshire Post, 
October 8).

It was disingenuous of Ed Miliband to vaunt his comprehensive school credentials, having grown up in a middle-class district of North London.

However, Mr Atkinson might have compared Miliband’s school to its London inner-city counterparts instead of their equivalent in Newcastle or Sheffield.

I can’t speak for Newcastle but pupils living in the South and West of Sheffield are probably among the most privileged in the country.

Taking swing at golf cup

From: Edward White, Huntingdon Crescent, Sheffield.

TRUST Tom Richmond and Brian Sheridan to bring politics into the Ryder Cup (Yorkshire Post, October 6).

Clearly they know nothing about the origin and history of the event otherwise they would understand that it has 
got nothing to do with politics 
or the EU.

All aspects of the event are overseen by the golf bodies of the European Tour and the USPGA.

The cup was provided by Samuel Ryder in 1927 for the competition between players from Great Britain and Ireland and the USA.

Unfortunately it became 
one-sided in favour of the Americans so in 1979 selection for the team was extended to European players, a change which has moved the contest 
in Europe’s favour and 
explains the behaviour of some American fans.

The European flag is used to counter the Stars and Stripes.