NOT even the most fanciful of soap opera script-writers could make it up. A high-ranking police officer is condemned by a judge for wasting a huge amount of public money by delaying the £500,000 trial of two detectives accused of stealing a boiler worth only £20.

The chastised officer might have expected to get into hot water but, instead, is put in charge of his police force's new ethics department.

The following year, he is sent on an all-expenses paid, three-week trip to North America to research ethics.

That mission completed, he is then sent to Lithuania to advise on anti-corruption inquiries, but ends up in disgrace after being caught urinating against the presidential palace, and being fined £35.

In Lithuania, urinating against the president's palace is an act considered to be anything but ethical. It is, in fact, described as "a humiliation of the office of the president".

It is probably now a fair bet that, despite the conviction, the officer will be put in charge of international relations when he returns to base and be quickly despatched on an all-expenses paid trip to Outer Mongolia to study diplomacy.

Meanwhile, back home at the headquarters of Cleveland Police, a four-year corruption inquiry appears to be finally grinding to a wholly unsatisfactory conclusion.

This is the same inquiry which was once led by the aforementioned officer, who couldn't manage to find a toilet in Lithuania, and consequently caused deep offence to the president.

At the centre of this multi-million pound inquiry, which has been the subject of more leaks than a Lithuanian presidential palace, is another senior officer dubbed Robocop.

He is pleading guilty to disciplinary charges he has always denied on the grounds that he desperately wants to be sacked so he can run for the job of mayor.

The big cheeses at the council are terrified that he might actually win if he gets to stand as mayor, so complete panic has set in.

Welcome to Ladgate Lane - the soap opera with more twists and turns than Coronation Street, EastEnders, Brookside, and Emmerdale put together.

But it'll never catch on - the script is too unbelievable.