With the row over Operation Lancet still raging, The Northern Echo puts Ray Mallon on the spot and asks him to answer - for the first time - the 14 disciplinary charges against him.

THE main charges against me concern rumours - and there have been plenty of them flying around these last few days. Let me first of all clear up some of these rumours.

Firstly, I have NOT pleaded guilty to charges I faced over four years ago. In 1997 I faced CRIMINAL allegations. I denied these and was cleared, along with every other officer so accused, in June 2000.

Secondly, I have never been charged, either criminally or disciplinarily, with handling, supplying or taking drugs, or even witnessing such events first hand.

The bulk of charges allege that I was aware of RUMOURS of such behaviour and failed to investigate those rumours. Rumours are commonplace in a busy urban police station, especially a successful one.

That is because criminals do not like being arrested and locked up - they prefer to be out on the streets causing mayhem or burgling houses. When we catch them they don't just stand there and say "it's a fair cop". They will do anything they can to cause the police problems and one of their tricks is to make false allegations, to plant rumours about the behaviour of detectives. Their aim is to try to wear down the police, to tie up the system with red tape, but also to try and set policeman against policeman.

Of course all allegations against the police have to be looked at, but an experienced officer can quickly ascertain whether the rumours are malicious or based on fact.

Five of the allegations I faced surround an incident in which a criminal claimed he was taken out of the police station and given drugs by three detectives. This incident was investigated by another superintendent who was satisfied that no drugs had been supplied by police officers. I looked into the matter and came to the same conclusion.

In June 2000, the Crown Prosecution Service, Treasury Counsel and the Director of Public Prosecutions himself agreed with my findings when they decided no charges should be brought. An independent review of Lancet by West Yorkshire Police came to the same conclusion.

That is why no police officers have been charged with supplying drugs. Indeed, not one of the 400 criminal allegations levelled by Lancet against 61 officers has been proceeded with.

Obviously, this caused acute embarrassment to Cleveland Police and the Police Complaints Authority who had spent millions of pounds and diverted scores of officers from frontline duty to a three-year probe, which failed to produce evidence to substantiate a single charge, let alone conviction.

Desperate to justify their actions, they kept me suspended and, in September 2000, used the same discredited witnesses and evidence to level internal disciplinary charges against me.

Charges one, four, six, seven and eight concern the incident I have described above, regarding the criminal taken out of the police station who the CPS concluded had NOT been given drugs by officers. I was effectively charged with failing to investigate a rumour into something that did not happen. I did investigate and found, like the CPS, that the supposed crimes did not take place.

Charges three, five, ten and 12 accuse me of effectively turning a blind eye to drug taking by officers. Many officers within the Cleveland force have been subject to rumours that they have taken drugs socially. The force was aware of these rumours as far back as 1994 - long before I came to Middlesbrough.

Evidence is what you see and what you hear first hand. There was only one occasion in which I had evidence that an officer was involved with drugs. I handed that information to the Complaints and Discipline branch. I am not prepared to destroy the careers of police officers by spreading baseless rumours, though I did investigate such rumours to ascertain whether there was any truth in them.

Charge two accuses me of failing to investigate rumours that a police officer tipped off a criminal about an impending drugs raid. This rumour was first brought to my attention 27 days after the event. I did look into it and found there was no evidence to link the accused officer with such an act. It then transpired a call had been made to the criminal from a phone in the CID office. As the criminal was also an informant, this was not unusual, officers might contact him four or five times a day.

In fact, the officer accused of making the tip-off was off sick on the day in question and had not been in the CID office, so could not have made the call.

Charges nine and 11 accuse me of trying to influence an inspector to remove evidence from a report. To prosecute requires firm evidence, not rumour, hearsay or second-hand gossip. I went through a report with an inspector and pointed out areas which would be inadmissable as evidence and asked him to rewrite it. I gave him back the original report, not something I would do if I was hatching a cover- up.

Weeding out evidence from rumour is a very important step in the investigative process. Producing a file full of rumour and innuendo does nothing except waste a vast amount of police time and money because it will be kicked out by the CPS or at court. Indeed, that is precisely what happened to every Lancet file.

Charges 13 and 14 accuse me of falsehood and prevarication. This arises out of three statements I submitted to Lancet over three years and totalling a quarter of a million words. Lancet went through every line of this and found two minor discrepancies. I regard these as simple mistakes which I was happy to clarify. Lancet chose to charge me with falsehood and prevarication.

I was cleared of all criminal conduct in June 2000 and remain confident that any fair hearing would have come to the same conclusion regarding the disciplinary breaches I faced.

Unfortunately, when the hearing was adjourned until July, I faced a simple choice. Admit the breaches in order to stand as Mayor, or continue to fight and miss the boat. I made a tactical move to fulfil the promise I made to the people of Middlesbrough that my name would be on the ballot paper - now I will leave it up to them to decide my fate on May 2.

* Later this week, Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell on "why we had to root out the ills in Cleveland Police".