YOU describe the rise in the amount of complaints against the Thames Valley Police as “soaring”, “staggering and “having rocketed” (Oxford Mail, February 25).

You also report that Mike Franklin, IPCC commissioner for the South East, believes that “part of the reason for the increase in the number of people complaining is improved access and confidence in the complaints system”.

That may be so, but such trust is hardly justified when the number of substantiated allegations remains around the preposterously low one in 10.

Common sense dictates that the vast majority of the remaining 90 per cent of grievances are not spurious, especially as they tend to be made by fairly ordinary members of the public.

You further state that the most common grumble was about rude or late police officers, adding that the IPCC and the force could not give numbers.

Why not? Can they not even count?

You list six forces which witnessed larger increases than our own, but that still puts them very high up.

David Carroll, chairman of the force’s professional standards committee, claims that nine in 10 victims of crime were satisfied with the force. Though how such figures are gleaned is unspecified.

Perhaps we should rejoice at the fact that such a large proportion of the complaints concern mere rudeness and slowness rather than assault or perjury.

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford