LETTERS Subject to delay
Sir: Your readers may recall my letter of 2 March, in which I detailed the outrageous treatment I received at the hands of the police the previous month. They may also remember that, together with my sister, I was the subject of a random anti-terrorist check at the approach to Heathrow airport. Your publication of my letter stimulated a noticeable level of interest from radio, tele- vision and various publications. It has also motivated other targets of heavy-handed police tactics to write and complain as I did to the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
If other complainants, such as the ter- rorised Swiss tourist couple in a London taxi last week, receive the same response from the police that I have, then they must be prepared for a long wait. It is now six weeks since the Chief Commissioner has had my letter and the two excuses I have been given for nil response make pathetic reading. They come not from the Chief Commissioner himself, but from a Chief Inspector at Heathrow. They are: 1. On 28 March 1996 the Heathrow Police secretariat said that the Chief Inspector was on holiday until 1 April 1996.
2. On 2 April 1996 the Chief Inspector said to me, 'I am doing my best to interview the allegedly offending Police Constable, but I am sure you will understand that Police Officers are hard to get hold of because you don't know where they are.'
Either the command of a Chief Inspector is non-existent or I am the beneficiary of a deliberate process of delay by default. Charles Ranald Manor Farm House, Petersham, Richmond, Surrey
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