Former bobbies with three centuries of service for locking up crooks found they were locked out of a meeting at a Bradford police station and told: "You're only members of the public now."

The former officers had assembled at Javelin House, in Eccleshill, where a quarterly meeting of retired police officers was due to be held. But the officers were not allowed in because staff said they had not been notified.

The station has been a regular venue for committee meetings of the Bradford branch of the National Association of Retired Police Officers for more than a decade.

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police apologised and said there had been a breakdown in communication'.

He said: "Work has recently been carried out to provide improved conference room facilities at Javelin House and we will be only too happy to make these available to the retired officers for future meetings."

Retired sergeant Geoff Shores, a member of the group, said: "For the last 15 to 20 years, the branch has held committee meetings at Javelin House - but not this time.

"We had contacted them in advance and were assured we would have access as usual and a room set aside with coffee. Instead, it ended up with 12 retired police officers, five of them in their 80s, stood outside in the cold. We have got more than 300 years service between us, but that wasn't enough to get us in.

"The civilian worker kept saying this station closes to the public at 6pm and you are now members of the public'. It wasn't nice to be treated like that by members of our own." Retired inspector Dorothy Bell, secretary for the Bradford branch of retired officers, said she would be making a formal complaint about the "discourteous incident".

They say they have been told they can hold future meetings at the new police headquarters in Bradford when they open in January.

e-mail: will.kilner@bradford.newsquest.co.uk