CLEVELAND POLICE

THE shenanigans at Cleveland Police beggar belief. The comings and goings would be turned off by a disbelieving audience if they were part of a soap opera. They could not even be portrayed as a pantomime for children. They would not believe it.

A deputy chief constable has a 999 call from his home, but we are not going to explain why. He has left with a six-figure sum and no doubt with a good reference for his well-paid job overseas.

Another officer is accused of stealing a central heating boiler... and so it goes on.

The fiasco of Ray Mallon could never be accepted even as fiction. We don't really know just how many millions of pounds it has cost, but the tax and rate payers will have to stump up.

He was found not guilty of criminal charges after four years. Any hardened criminal who was accused for four years would be found not guilty anyway.

Obviously, the heads of the police did not want him to become Mayor of Middlesbrough so he has now pleaded guilty so he can be sacked and can put his name on the ballot paper. But he is someone who has pretended to be innocent and now is saying he is guilty. Which is he?

The ordinary man and woman is excluded from this farce and will never be told, unless one of the sides writes their story in return for a vast sum of money.

How do people of this ilk get into top jobs? Nearly all police are hard-working, honest people who are trying to do a difficult job. They are hampered by these events.

Surely, it is about time that these top jobs were changed as no one is taking real responsibility for the charade. Is it not time for the Government to make these political appointments so that the local population has to vote them into - and out of - office? - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

AT a public meeting, the Chief Constable of Cleveland Police, Barry Shaw, stated that the costs of the Lancet inquiry could have been avoided if Ray Mallon had pleaded guilty sooner.

This is a total misrepresentation of the facts and calculated to deceive. The costs were all incurred by the Lancet inquiry, in which Ray Mallon was totally cleared of all the criminal charges against him.

Mr Shaw instigated the Lancet inquiry, which proved to be totally unnecessary and, as such, he is guilty of an error of judgement. He started it and he is therefore responsible for the terrible waste of taxpayers' money that ensued.

When it became obvious that his attack on Mr Mallon via the Lancet charges was not going to succeed, Mr Shaw instigated internal disciplinary charges against Mr Mallon in order to divert attention.

The hearing of the internal disciplinary charges against Mr Mallon were delayed time after time, for no apparent reason, to prevent him standing for mayor. The only way he could get out of this situation, where his defence fund had run out of money, unlike the bottomless purse of his attackers, and where he would then be able to stand for mayor, was to plead guilty to the trumped-up internal disciplinary charges.

These charges were separate to the expensive and unnecessary Lancet inquiry and did not involve any costs.

Mr Shaw should now either resign or be dismissed for his lack of judgement in starting the abortive Lancet inquiry, and for his attempt to misrepresent who was really to blame for the waste of money. - RW Alexander, Darlington.

I READ with amazement that Chief Superintendent Kevin Pitt had been caught urinating on a palace in Vilnius, capital of the Baltic republic of Lithuania.

I also read with disgust at the treatment dished out to Robocop Ray Mallon, who unfortunately has been forced to resign from the police for doing his job.

A bit of a paradox, to which my solution would be to let Mr Pitt stay on in Vilnius and immediately reinstate Ray Mallon. Failing this, let the Cleveland people vote with their feet and put Ray into the mayor's office with a resounding victory for common sense. - Eric A Roberts (retired police officer), Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs.

AFTER four years and millions of pounds, Ray Mallon finally admitted his guilt of serious charges and walks away

Now we have to listen to him whine on about how badly done to he is, and he attacks the very police force that gave him a good living for almost 30 years and who will furnish him with a pension into his old age.

He is a bitter man with no kindness left in him and he is in danger of losing what little dignity he still possesses.

My thoughts are with the Cleveland police officers who have had to watch this fiasco, say nothing and get on with a difficult and dangerous job. As for standing as mayor, if a pantomime horse throws his hat into the ring, I know who will get my vote. Something wearing four shoes. - Joe Wellthorpe, Middlesbrough.

RAY Mallon is a man of immense calibre and integrity. As a serving police officer he was far and away the best in the country, a man who consistently put the public interest before his own.

Yes, we were all shocked when he admitted to the disciplinary charges, but it is now clear that this had to be done as the only means of cutting a way through the tangled web of intrigue and self-interest that exists at Cleveland Police headquarters.

I urge everyone to give him their 100 per cent backing and the people of Cleveland to turn out in force to vote for him when he stands for mayor. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

IT was sad to see the PG Tips chimps replaced on the TV ads, but all is not lost. They can now replace the people in charge of Cleveland Police.

I'm sure they can be trained in less than a fortnight to do a better job than the ones at present. They could literally be paid in peanuts rather than the thousands of pounds given to the ones who are now incapable of making logical decisions. They would be let off speeding tickets and, if caught drunk driving after a couple of months, given half a million quid to retire on.

This saga beats anything the soap writers can think up on TV. - A McKimm, Crook.

AFTER hearing the vitriolic attack by Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell on Ray Mallon, it makes one wonder what axe he has to grind. If I lived in Middlesbrough, I know who I would vote for, and who I wouldn't vote for. - M Richardson, Darlington.

I HAVE read every word of the reports on the Mallon affair (Echo, Feb 14) and I agree with your verdict of "ambiguous inconclusiveness".

Chief Constable Shaw's full statement was laced with rhetoric but short on detail. The public deserves better. The 14 admitted charges lacked specific detail, which could make all the difference between a questionable or a serious matter. Of the 14 charges, nine were sins of omission, three were instructing another party and two were making false statements.

Mr Mallon's main accusers and investigating officers are themselves significantly tarnished by recorded facts and verdicts.

In football terms, the score so far is 3-1 to Mallon. The goals: November 24, 1998, cleared of fiddling expenses (1-0); April 20, 1999, cleared of media abuse (2-0); June 20, 2000, CPS drops criminal charges (3-0); February 6, 2002, pleads guilty to 14 disciplinary charges (3-1).

To count the blunders and misconduct of the accusers would need a rugby score, so regard these as yellow cards, plus a couple of red ones, and several substitutions, vastly out-weighing the few exonerations.

Mr Mallon should give his side of each of the 14 allegations, saying what he did or didn't do and why. And why didn't he enter no plea and offer no defence rather than plead guilty?

Mr Mallon shows resolve and no doubt ruffles feathers, and may be a bully, but the inconclusive evidence doesn't prove he wouldn't make a good mayor. - Mike O'Carroll, Welbury, Northallerton.