HOW can Superintendent Dawn Copley have the effrontery to claim that the use of 18 officers and seven vehicles at Hoghton Tower duck shoot to police two observers from the North West League against Cruel Sports was a successful operation? (LT, November 8).

This was clearly a waste of police resources, coming as it does at a time when we read almost weekly of people being beaten/shot/stabbed to death, in many instances on their own doorsteps, often after doing little more than trying to reason with gangs of drunken or drug-fuelled thugs. If this kind of misuse of resources was to take place in the private sector then the company involved would very quickly go bankrupt, and herein lies the problem.

Private industry has customers/shareholders to please who can simply vote with their feet.

We the council taxpayers enjoy no such luxury.

If Supt Copley genuinely believes that this was indeed a successful operation, then I believe the forces of law and order in this country are in a worse state than even the tabloid press would have us believe.

S DARBY (via email).