THE volcano that is Cleveland Police erupted again over the weekend showering the landscape with clouds of dust and accusations but, once more, shedding no light whatsoever.

The Observer newspaper printed incredibly detailed allegations against former Detective Constable Brendon Whitehead. Ray Mallon is accused by Cleveland Police of not investigating those allegations properly, although he maintains that he did.

The allegations are very, very serious. So how did Operation Lancet, which investigated allegations of drugs being supplied to criminals who were in police custody, fail to find evidence of criminal wrong-doing in Cleveland when, five years later, a newspaper can roll out such detailed claims? How did this evidence end up in a newspaper and not in a court of law?

We welcome the news that Cleveland Police are thinking about re-submitting the evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service. Someone, somewhere, has to adjudicate this increasingly bitter dispute.

Another eruption of bitterness came in the BBC's North of Westminster studio yesterday as Mr Mallon confronted his accuser, Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell.

It too shed no light at all, but it was compelling viewing - if only to see two sober-suited grown men shouting "yaboo sucks" at each other.

The programme showed how Lancet has failed. Here we had a man who had admitted 14 serious charges protesting his innocence and an MP who said he had not seen all the papers but accusing the man of all manner of serious failings.

But this is all Lancet has to offer after so many years and so many millions: a wholly unsatisfactory inconclusiveness. Outsiders do not have a clue which party to believe.

As we've said before, there would be much to gain from the Home Office instituting an independent inquiry into Lancet, the way it was conducted and the attendant embarrassments that have befallen Cleveland Police while it has been on-going.

The letters on this page alone show how concerned local people are with what has been going on and how they are crying out for the facts.