HOME Secretary Jack Straw is handed a thorny task as a Commons select committee passes on recommendations calling for a radical overhaul and the police complaints and discipline system.

And it is true that shaken public confidence in the police service would be restored by ending one the biggest impediments to improvement - that of "the police investigating the police" when complaints about misconduct are made.

For despite the investigations being made by officers from another force, the credibility of the system is automatically undermined by it being ring-fenced inside the profession.

There are many other aspects to this issue - not least the frequent slowness of such probes, provoking suspicions of reluctance to reach a conclusion and the prospect of a clash between rank and file officers and police chiefs if powers to sack are strengthened.

But as Mr Straw faces the decision on how far to go on the committee's recommendations, he should realise that the system needs to be as independent and open as possible if it is to be fair and effective - to officers and complainants and, most of all, for the sake of public confidence that bad apples are not preserved in our police service.

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