ONCE again, we return to Operation Lancet on this page. We accept that, for every reader trying to follow the twists and turns of this baffling affair, there is another who is so at a loss to know what to think, that they've turned off completely.

Once again, we return to it because something feels not quite right. It is not right that an MP should use his privileged Parliamentary position to accuse an ex-policeman of terrible crimes and then, for that ex-policeman to have no right of reply, especially as that ex-policeman is standing against the MP's party in an election just seven weeks away. So, we have afforded that ex-policeman his right of reply. That, surely, is morally right.

It is morally right because, from the evidence at hand, Ray Mallon's defence appears to be just as plausible as Stuart Bell's prosecution.

It is, though, wrong that this case is fought out in the pages of the press. It should be determined in a court of law.

Yet, when Mr Bell's case was presented to the Crown Prosecution Service, it was deemed "insufficient". Even more confusingly, Mr Mallon pleaded guilty to the disciplinary charges arising out of it.

The public deserve some answers, and not just because of £3.3m-£7m of their money that this case has absorbed.

The public deserves answers because of the terrifying vision of violent criminals roaming free on our streets outlined this week by Sir John Stevens.

Yet, Mr Mallon's zero tolerance methods worked. When implemented by Cleveland Police, they cut crime, they locked up criminals and they were popular with the people. The people deserve to know if his methods were legal, and whether they have a place in the future.

A final point. Middlesbrough's Labour hierachy is now so firmly in the anti-Mallon camp, that the mayoral election is turning into a poll about Lancet, with the abstainers wanting the whole lot of them to go away.

But the new mayor will be hugely important in ensuring that the council tax is well spent in future years on public services. Middlesbrough people deserve the best man - or woman - for that job, just as they deserve far better from Operation Lancet.