A former Thames Valley Police officer has contacted the Oxford Mail to complain about the "abysmal" state of staffing at the force's call-handling centre.

David Youd, a former acting detective inspector, blames the centralised call-handling system introduced in the mid-1980s for the problems currently faced by Thames Valley.

Mr Youd, 65, contacted the Oxford Mail after reading about the difficulties motorist Nigel Plummer, one of the last people to see hitchhiker Richard Preston alive before he was killed in a hit-and-run accident on the A34, had answering a police appeal for witnesses.

That incident, in which Mr Plummer had to wait six days before officers responded to his call, followed attempts by the Oxford Mail to alert police to the whereabouts of escaped arsonist David Blagdon.

Mr Youd, of Barlow Close, Wheatley was driven to distraction after spotting an antique stool worth £270 outside a shop in Woodstock on Easter Saturday.

Fearing it could be stolen, or used to smash a window, he tried to hand it in at the local police station.

Finding the station was closed on weekends and bank holidays, he used a nearby call box to contact police, and was put through to police in Banbury.

On explaining the problem they transferred him - to an answer phone. The call phone outside the station also went though to an answer phone.

Eventually, Mr Youd gave the stool to the nearby Marlborough Hotel for safekeeping.

He said: "My temper was strained quite a bit.

"I worked for a number of police forces, including Thames Valley and the Royal Parks Constabulary, until I retired in 1995 and we had no communication problems.

"I'm really appalled by what's happening at the moment. I think this all started when, in about 1985, they brought in a new scheme of telephone answering and changed to call-holding centres.

"It breaks my heart to think of it. I also once tried to report a drugs offence and nobody ever got back to me. I have loyalty to the Royal Parks, but I don't have loyalty to Thames Valley Police because they don't deserve it."

A 62-year-old man from near Wantage, who did not want to be named, also rang the Oxford Mail to complain that on two occasions this year when he had rung police to report a suspicious caller to his house, he had been put through to stations miles away.

Once he was put through to Slough, and the second time to Milton Keynes.

He said: "This seems to happen frequently and I am getting cheesed off by it."