CONSIDER, if you will, that the UK set the standards for a nonpolitical, unbiased police service.

This service has formed the basis of policing around the world and was, until very recently, the yardstick of tempered justice.

Recently, we have seen that elements within the police have leaked secrets to newspapers and apparently colluded to oust a Government minister.

Still shaking with disbelief that this could happen in the cradle of policing, we find that a female police officer is to sue a garage owner, having tripped in his illuminated forecourt while answering a 999 call. This officer is a disgrace, not only to the service but to that of gallant officers who have lost their lives in the call to duty, two of whom I was privileged to know personally.

When this woman sits down to compose her statement of how she tripped over a kerb, I ask her to remember the hundreds of brave young men and women serving the Queen who have fallen or lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These people, who earn considerably less than a police constable, risk their lives on a daily basis while people like her swan around purporting to uphold the Queen’s peace.

This litigation must not be allowed to succeed. All this police officer has done in bringing this action is to subject the already discredited British police to further scrutiny and lose more of the already dwindling public support it has.

Colin T Mortimer, Pity Me.