SUSPENDED police chief Ray Mallon has warned Cleveland Police that he will ensure the truth about Operation Lancet is made public.

He told a fundraising dinner: "I haven't even started yet - I've got lots to say and they know it."

Detective Superintendent Mallon - recently cleared of all criminal wrong-doing by the Operation Lancet inquiry after an investigation spanning two and a half years - issued the stark warning at a charity evening in aid of the Butterwick Children's Hospice.

As revealed in later editions of The Northern Echo yesterday, he repeated his call for a public inquiry and predicted that Operation Lancet could go on for another year.

He said: "Political intervention has to come because Cleveland Police is in crisis."

He stressed that the original basis for Operation Lancet had been that officers had allegedly supplied drugs to criminals.

"Every officer has now been cleared with regard to giving drugs to criminals - the whole foundation of it has gone.

"You had criminals in prisons making allegations when they were visited, and criminals being visited at home, having allegations solicited. None of them have been substantiated."

And yet he said he feared the inquiry, which he said had already cost at least £5m, would go on for another year as investigators sought to "smear" him and bring disciplinary charges against him.

"The disciplinary allegations against me are not worth the paper they are written on - we are back to the witch hunt."

He said many of the disciplinary allegations pre-dated his time at Middlesbrough CID, adding: "We needed an inquiry because a minority of officers were out of control."

He said the disciplinary allegations included writing a weekly column for The Northern Echo. "I might be bruised, I might be a little bit wounded but I am not out and I am not walking away from this under any circumstances," he said.

He accused the Cleveland Police Authority of failing to do its job properly.

It was the first time the Zero Tolerance campaigner has spoken in public since a tense press conference shortly after the findings of the Lancet probe were announced.

"I think the public are going to have to suck on this pill for another 12 months and the only winner will be the criminal because they are laughing their socks off."

pbarro