Tory leader Michael Howard today vowed to adopt the Robocop method in his crusade against crime.

He travelled to Middlesbrough to meet with mayor Ray Mallon, the former police chief who cleaned up the streets with his no nonsene zero tolerance tactics.

Mallon - known to his supporters as Robocop - slashed crime in the town before he was suspended in the Operation Lancet corruption probe.

In a speech seen as his most important since become Conservative leader, Mr Howard held up the Mallon approach as an example of how communities can win the fight against crime.

Mr Howard said: "Ray has proved that if you want to cut crime, you can cut crime. He has shown that with decisive action and clear direction you can begin the process of urban renewal. And he has demonstrated that when local communities pull together they can start to improve everyone's quality of life."

Mallon resigned from his job as head of Middlesbrough CID after a lengthy suspension so that he could stand as Middlesbrough's first elected mayor, a position he won with a landslide vote.

Only last week he spoke of his ambition to eventually become a Labour MP, but today he was singing Michael Howard's praises.

Mr Mallon said: "This is a really big issue and clearly the Conservative Party has been watching Middlesbrough very closesly in relation to law and order.

"That is why they have come to Middlesbrough to roll out their agenda.

"It is common knowledge that O hold Michael Howard in a high regard. Without doubt, he is the most effective Home Secretary in living memory and I am very pleased he is coming to Middlesbrough."

The Tory leader blamed "sociological mumbo-jumbo" for blurring the distinction between right and wrong.

The issuing of receipts to those stopped by the police was one of the recommendations of the Macpherson Report into Stephen Lawrence's death.

Mr Howard, speaking in Middlesbrough, stressed that the system - currently being trialled - covered every person stopped, not just those who were subsequently searched. He said that each report of a stop took about seven minutes.

He said: "If a police officer saw a troublemaker on the high street, is he or she more likely to stop him if it means having to spend seven minutes filling in the paperwork.

"Imagine if it was half a dozen - that's not just seven minutes - that's the best part of an hour."

He also called for more respect to be shown by people in general, urging stronger discipline and respect in schools and at home.

He stressed the need for fathers to play a key role in children's lives, particularly for boys - saying the Tories would bring in a presumption for equal parenting rights.

Mr Howard pledged to return to schools the power to deal with violent and unruly pupils.

"Disruptive pupils do not just ruin their own education; they ruin that of every other child in the class," he said.

Mr Howard attacked the tendency in wider society for rights to outweigh citizens' sense of responsibility.

"Many people now believe that they are no longer wholly responsible for their actions. It's someone else's fault, or something else's fault - the environment, society and the government," he said.

There was an "ethical quagmire" where "the clear distinction between right and wrong has been lost in sociological mumbo-jumbo and politically correct nonsense", he added.

Referring to Tony Blair's speech last month calling for an end to the 1960s liberal consensus on law and order, he said he had ended that when he became home secretary in the early 1990s.

Mr Howard made the speech after meeting the town's independent mayor, Ray Mallon.

Mr Mallon earned the nick-name "Robocop" during his police career because of his zero-tolerance approach to crime and unruly behaviour.

Mr Howard took the opportunity to outline what he said were the successes of zero tolerance policing in Middlesbrough and New York.

"By challenging so-called small crimes head-on, you push back the burglars, car thieves and drug dealers responsible for so much crime in Britain today," he said. He said the Conservatives would support the police on stop and search.

A Conservative government would increase prison space, and also increase from 2,000 to 20,000 the number of drug rehabilitation spaces in the UK.

"Addicts will then face a choice - rehab or prison, and if you drop out of rehab you go straight to prison, there will be no second chances," he will say.

The element of the speech which received most comment beforehand was the announcement that the Conservatives would not implement the Macpherson recommendation on issuing receipts to those stopped.

That decision was described as "deeply disappointing" by Simon Woolley, director of Operation Black Vote, which encourages ethnic minorities to participate in the democratic process.

He said it was "sanctioning the demonisation of black and Asian youth".