YP Letters: Did Miners' Strike damage respect for police?

DURING the Miners’ Strike I attended an evening with Mike Harding in 1985 organised by the Labour Party in West Yorkshire in aid of striking miners.

On the evening, my colleague and I spoke to a professor (whose name now eludes me), he was a leading member of the National Council for Civil Liberties (now known as Liberty).

He told us that the main concern for the NCCL was “the level of public acceptability” due to the violence meted out by the police to the striking miners.

It is my firm belief that respect for the police started to deteriorate at this point in history (the deterioration did not happen overnight), this was certainly the case in the mining villages of South Yorkshire.

This lowered level of acceptability and lack of respect for the police is still being exacerbated by the programmes on television showing the police smashing car windows and dragging criminals out of their cars, along with the loutish behaviour by some of these officers towards members of the public.

Respect has to be earned and this is not the way our police officers will gain it.

I would dare to say we are at, or very near to a point, where lack of respect for the police is now irreversible.