Some of your readers will have suffered various forms of crime on the afternoon of Sunday, September 21, only to be told by a pompous police call operator that their officers were too busy to come out.

These victims of crime will therefore be disgusted to learn that the same afternoon, four or five peaceful protesters against vivisection in Oxford were being monitored by not one but three fully uniformed policemen.

As there was no hint of trouble, this was yet another example of wasted council taxes by the highest paid, yet least effective, of all the emergency services.

PAUL McKELLERN Palmer Road Wood Farm Oxford