SIR - Aren't our policemen wonderful, big, brave and full of the milk of human kindness?

Not so long since, a woman rang the police and reported a burglar in her house while she was in bed and was told: "Lock your bedroom door, madam, and someone will be round to see you in the morning.

Does it really take six policemen, some of them armed to the teeth, to apprehend a lone woman returning to England to face the music?

The police force must be commanded by the progeny of the donkeys who led the forces in the First World War.

This is "democratic Britain" isn't it?

Phil Boase, Elizabeth Street, Wyke