THERE is merit in the police’s approach to try to stop crime happening in the first place.

If there is no crime, there is no victim, and therefore no suffering, misery or loss.

Prevention is, they say, better than cure, and crime has fallen. Police should receive due credit for that.

But it is an idyll to expect prevention to be the plank upon which you combat most crime.

Crimes will happen and the police then need to go and catch the baddies.

Deputy Chief Constable Francis Habgood did, to his credit, come out and hold his hands up: a case of fair cop, Guv.

But it is concerning that it has taken a report by a Government inspector to make our senior police chiefs realise they are not collaring enough criminals and they had to have a meeting with the Crown Prosecution Service to look for a solution.

Policing is more complicated than in the days of Dixon of Dock Green, that is true, and there are more demands on their time.

But the basic point remains: when someone commits a crime, police need to go out and catch the criminal, put them before the courts and let justice take its course.