You can't have people brandishing guns so I understand the sentence imposed on Linda Walker, but everyone has a snapping point. Walker, a respectable and valued teacher, snapped after weeks of abuse and vandalism directed against her home and after police had failed to take her problem seriously. Her family claim they made 15 calls to the police, the police have a record of only three. Eventually, Walker took a gas-powered pistol and fired it into the ground at the feet of the youths she believed had caused her misery and the misery of her family. Of course she shouldn't have lost her self-control but if it's true that the police failed to respond as they should to her 15 phone calls she wouldn't have had cause so to do. In desperation, she rang the police and told them what she intended. I think that was a final plea for them to give her the protection she deserved. If someone had said "Don't be silly, we're on our way round now" I think she would have heaved a sigh of relief and waited. Instead the operator was quick to tell her she'd be committing an offence and the police were equally quick to arrest her while the alleged grinning cause of her misery, both with criminal records, looked on. I am deluged with letters from people who say their complaints of harassment are not taken seriously. Some of those writers may have a bee in their bonnet but can they all be wrong? Are police perhaps forced to be more interested in keeping down crime statistics than keeping the peace? And if this is true is it the fault of the Home Office who burden them with targets and too much paperwork? A case in the papers three days after Linda Walker's sentencing would seem to suggest we need to examine the situation. Shop manageress Linda Currie knew the yobs who launched a violent attack on her shop. Better still she had them on videotape. Were the police grateful for this evidence? Not on your life! First of all they suggested Mrs Currie call on the alleged villain herself because "they couldn't just go knocking on doors". As for the tape, they suggested she watched it herself and rang them if there was anything interesting on it. That was the third time she had called police in two weeks. The first time a young thug brandished a ball-bearing gun at terrified staff but police failed to turn up. The second time the victim of an attack in the street sought refuge in the shop. Again police failed to attend. The third time they came but appeared reluctant to deal with her complaint. "Go round yourself" is hardly an adequate response. Now that the whole sorry tale has hit the press senior police are buzzing like wasps round jam but a bit too late. If Linda Currie had snapped like Linda Walker she too might be languishing in jail. Those who caused the Walker incident are laughing their socks off as they walk around unhindered. The police have vowed to catch the thugs who besieged Linda Currie's shop but at the moment they too are free. Could we be jailing the wrong people? ********** Alarm bells over privacy A phrase heard on Radio Four alarmed me this week. "The minister's words do not reflect the true position." It was uttered by a senior civil servant and referred to a ministerial promise that patients would be able to opt out of the scheme to put our medical records on a central database accessible to everyone working in the NHS. Imagine
those personal details you whispered to your doctor accessed by the hundreds of thousands of people working for arguably Britain's biggest employer. It's a scary thought. The civil servant went on to say: "Patients do not have the right to veto the material or the medium on which it is recorded" as though we have no right at all to privacy or confidentiality. All this had come to light through a leaked memo and a Government spokesman was stoutly affirming our right to retain our privacy if we so wished. We must be vigilant to make sure we are given that right. Imagine the insurance implications of an Aids or Hepatitis test? An unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease? Any mediocre private eye working on behalf of insurers or divorce lawyers could hack into the nationwide system and make something of our relationship with our doctor, at present sacred to the individual practice, soon to be shared with the wider world. ********** Gang puzzle A Colombian drugs gang consisting of seven young men and a teenage mother dispensed cocaine from the bedroom the teenage mother shared with her baby. They were caught when someone spotted an incoming parcel, which contained half a million pounds worth of cocaine, and the police and Customs and Excise are to be congratulated on that. But will someone tell me how eight Colombians, not Europeans or Commonwealth citizens, managed to get into this country, obtain jobs as salesmen and night club staff, rent and in one case own property and no one questioned their presence? We surely have enough villains of our own without importing them. ********** Leave alone Have we learned nothing from recent history? Like Prince Charles or not, you must feel a sliver of guilt at the way the media and a voracious public pushed him into marrying Diana, with disastrous consequences for all concerned. Now we seem to be at it again, this time with William as the victim. So he has a girlfriend called Kate Middleton. So what? If he's to make a happy marriage eventually he needs to have many more before he makes his choice. Kate is equally entitled to play the field. God forbid we start a bandwagon that ends in another ill-considered union. Leave the lad alone! ********** Voting danger There's one big drawback to postal voting. I can remember the days when many women voted the way their husbands told them to vote. In rare cases a bossy woman decided how her household would ballot and husbands agreed for peace. Or they said they did for the sake of family harmony. In the privacy of the voting booth the hen-pecked could vote as they pleased. If postal votes go into a home now what's to stop a dominant individual - male or female - making sure that every ballot is filled in as they choose? What about the elderly or the 18-year-old dependent on parental support? A judge says it's a procedure ripe for corruption. I fear it's also a procedure ripe for domination. ********** According to research by the insurance firm Privilege more than half of all adults change their voice on the phone
in other words, they talk posh. Well, some people may think it's enough to merely change their voices. Personally I not only round my vowels, I crook my little finger while I'm doing it. ********** At last Damien Hirst
he of the pickled sheep and the pinioned butterflies
has seen the light! "You do turn around after a few years and look at your stuff and you think it's embarrassing." All we need now is Tracey Emin in sackcloth and ashes and I'll be well chuffed. ********** I don't blame Christopher Eccleston for leaving Dr Who in case he's typecast. After all, what else have you seen the Daleks in? | 
