Can we have free tuition please?

I write in response to your article on Bolton Chief Superintendent, Dave Lea.

I was surprised that Mr Lea admits that one of the things he likes about France “is that there is a much lower propensity for violence than there is in the UK” and that he finds crime levels much lower, so much so that he doesn't feel the need to worry about the safety of his son as much as in the UK.

Mr Lea recognises a difference in UK and French policing attitudes. He says the UK style is “policing by consent” and that they "try to show a pleasant face and to interact,” whereas French police “like a show of force."

Surely this is one of the reasons that France has "a much lower propensity for violence" and crime rates are lower?

The police are respected. You don't see them interacting with drunken teenage yobs calling them "mate" as you do on fly-on-the-wall documentaries about the police on British television.

Yet, despite this, Mr Lea goes on to say that French policing is where the UK was in the 1970s and 1980s and that French police have a lot to learn - negotiating more and less use of brute force - yet they are heading in the right direction.

I hope that the direction the French police are heading in is not in the same direction the British police went "25 years ago."

Otherwise Mr Lea may find the reasons he moved to France - "the peace and the lifestyle" - are replaced by teenage yobs running riot as they now do in much of the UK.
BA
By email

I was amazed to read of Chief Superintendent Lea’s criticism of the French policing methods.

It is because of their tough approach that we all enjoy the secure and relatively crime-free life France has to offer.

Perhaps he would like to retire to Bolton where he could enjoy the criminal/yob culture he and his politically-correct police force have helped create?
RH
Nades

I WAS absolutely amazed to read about David Lea, whose family live in France and who commutes every month for a week.

When I was a Bolton policeman in the 1950s we worked six days a week and had two weeks’ leave, one of which had to be taken in winter.

While there is no direct comparison, but the police today have lost their way.

I believe the “softly, softly” approach to policing he favours is contributing to a worsening situation.

The streets of Bolton were safer when I policed them and that was due to good, old-fashioned policing.

If the French police adopted the namby-pamby approach he advocates perhaps the lifestyle he admires here in France would not exist.
DB
Coray