IF the online comments in police chief David Warcup’s response to my recent observations on the assaults on two French students are anything to go by, I seem to have started a bit of a debate. However, there are a couple of points which need clarification.

Mr Warcup said that this newspaper has a responsibility to report matters accurately, as well as providing a forum for comment and debate. I agree, but I very much fear that he is getting those things confused.

I did not write a report on the assaults. All I did, along with tens of thousands of others, was read it and then make a comment.

He quotes me directly in stating: ‘… the now perennial question about where the hell the police were when all this was going on – there was a time when virtually every street in town saw at least one police officer each hour.’

Mr Warcup not only describes this level of policing as a myth, but also asserts: ‘This level of available policing resources has never existed.’ He adds: ‘Contrary to the claim in the Helier Clement column, the States of Jersey police have never had the resources to put a patrol through every street in St Helier every hour.’

Sorry, but who said they had? What I said was ‘virtually every street in town’ and given that I know perfectly well, even if people working in Rouge Bouillon don’t, that St Helier stretches from The Dicq in the east to Millbrook in the west, not to mention half-way up Mont Cochon, Mont à l’Abbé and Trinity Hill, there is no way I would have either said or meant the whole of St Helier.

Since Mr Warcup’s letter was published, two former States police officers have contacted me by letter, both with virtually identical comments. They said that the normal coverage of foot patrols – their expressions rather than mine – extended very roughly from Cheapside to Howard Davis Park bounded by the Esplanade and Havre des Pas to the south and Rouge Bouillon and Springfield to the north.

One of them said that policing the harbour area was additional to this, while the other stated that officers on lightweight motorcycles (he said they were called Noddy bikes because they were quiet) also patrolled the town area, as did other officers on motorcycles and in cars.

‘You are probably not far wrong in saying that virtually every street in town saw a police officer each hour. The trouble is that we are referring to 40 or so years ago – the very late 50s and early 60s, when officers spent most of their time in public, rather than bogged down filling in forms and writing reports,’ said one. ‘I doubt very much that there is anyone in the force who can remember those days, and at the time I’m thinking of there were only a hundred of us, including the Chief, Henry Le Brocq.’

I have no wish to fall out, in print or otherwise, with Mr Warcup. I happen to think that he made a very effective job of getting the ‘evidence’ gathered in the Haut de la Garenne inquiry, upon which so many lurid headlines were based, into a proper perspective, and I said so at the time.

Nothing that I’ve heard or read since alters that view, and quite frankly the sooner he assumes full command of the States police, the better able he and those he chooses to have around him will be to sort out whatever issues need sorting out.

But just like him, I like things to be accurate. If I’ve cocked up, I say so and put my hands up, but in this instance I don’t think I did – certainly not to the extent that Mr Warcup suggests.

Indeed, reading the online comments here on thisisjersey.com, there are those who appear to question the research quoted by Mr Warcup, suggesting that it has been ‘surpassed and partially discredited’ – but perhaps that’s another debate for another day.

I read the letter the other day from Chris Clancy headlined ‘Where’s the justice?’ and opening with the words: ‘What is happening in Jersey is beyond belief.’ Mr or Ms Clancy went on to state, quite unequivocally: ‘Millions of pounds spent on police investigations into child abuse resulting in the compilation of enough evidence for very professional and experienced officers to submit files to the prosecuting officers which they considered enough to bring convictions.’

Mr or Ms Clancy seems quite clear about that, and the statement regarding the view of police officers regarding the quality of the evidence he or she claims they have gathered leaves no room at all for doubt.

Yet on the front page of the very edition which carried his or her letter, there is a report on comments made in the States by Her Majesty’s Attorney-General, William Bailhache. He told our elected representatives that the decision to drop the 11 cases had been made by the Crown Advocate appointed to handle the prosecutions.

In addition, said Mr Bailhache, the Crown Advocate’s decision had been reviewed by another senior Law Officer, a London barrister and the Attorney-General himself. Furthermore, said Mr Bailhache, the police had backed the decisions not to take the cases to court.

Few people I know would agree – on a less emotive issue – with prosecuting someone on evidence so flimsy that in all probability a judge would be duty-bound to stop the trial and acquit the defendant as soon as the prosecution ‘case’ had been completed.

Or is it the case that mob rule should prevail and no matter how weak the ‘evidence’, there must be an accused and he or she must be identified, just so they can be pilloried for the rest of their lives?

I for one want no part of that.

AND finally … Paul Le Claire is quite right to describe wheel-clamping as ‘mechanical mugging’. In my view it’s also close to legalised theft, and it’s time it was outlawed.