FOR 932 days, Ray Mallon has waited to discover his fate.

As those days have passed - agonisingly slowly for all those involved - more and more questions have arisen about Operation Lancet.

Why was it taking so long? How much would it eventually cost taxpayers? How would it affect police morale? How would it influence crime figures? What were the implications for police forces throughout the country?

The Northern Echo has repeatedly posed those and other questions as Lancet dragged on and on, casting darker and darker clouds over the image of Cleveland Police with every day that passed.

Ray Mallon, who has at last been told he will not face criminal charges, went from being the "Zero Tolerance supercop" every politician wanted to be near in the run up to the General Election, to a pariah of the police - a man facing the most damaging of allegations for a law-enforcer.

In the months leading up to his suspension, he remained convinced that his enemies within the police were out to bring him down.

Millions of pounds of public money were spent and even now there are conflicting accounts of exactly how much.

And yet we were expected to accept the fact that the man who suspended Detective Superintendent Mallon, Assistant Chief Constable Robert Turnbull, should leave the force with a £180,000 golden handshake, a £50,000-a-year pension, and a plum job as deputy commissioner of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Nice work if you can get it.

We have never argued that the investigation into alleged corruption and malpractice within Cleveland Police should not be investigated thoroughly. Of course it had to be - public confidence depended on it. But it simply went on too long and was exacerbated by the way high-ranking police officers given the task of investigating the allegations ended up being investigated themselves.

In what other profession would someone be left in limbo for three years, with such smears against their name?

Even now it is not over. Det Supt Mallon still faces the possibility of police disciplinary charges.

Whatever the outcome, it has to be sorted quickly so that Ray Mallon can get on with his life - either inside or outside of the police.

In terms of the wider picture, lessons have to be learned.

It is surely not right to have a system in which the police investigate the police. That has to be changed.

And, although there is a danger of being seen to spend good money after bad, there are too many questions remaining unanswered.

There has to be a public inquiry into this whole, sorry affair.