Your starter for ten is not if you have ever had a brush with the law, but how you were treated when that happened? It could have been when you were young or when driving was part of your job, whatever the circumstances, you will have come away with the feeling of frustration compounded by the superior attitude that is in every policeman's guide book.

To be fair to the system, it has been pulled kicking and screaming into the next century of human rights, with a lot of military old timers, who felt that a good clout round the ear early on in a lad's life, did little harm.

The police will have a far bigger concern in the next ten years. The CCTV camera will have face recognition as standard, fed by the picture records of all prisoners; the system will track everyone who has a record. The problem will be the insidious use for other "political" purposes that the system will be put.

The cost of keeping an eye on people and their movements will be reduced to a fraction, which makes it dangerous to democracy. The temptation to use it for "control" will be massive. Therefore I would hope before too long we have a bill of rights and a total, independent police review body, however as the cost of anything to do with government is paid by government this is not likely to be very free and unbiased.

The police, bless em', have an interest in the system but they are as keen to justify their monies as all the other cogs. The problem is in getting anyone to actually be punished for doing bad stuff! You have to see the lies and distortion of the truth at first hand to understand why I point to the first impression made by your initial contact. Never forget that promotion may come off the back of overzealous policing tactics.

While writing this, police raided houses in the Teeside area and took six people into custody. It required 150 officers and all that cost, two days later all six are free without charge. Who cocked it up, we will never know, who pays for the fear and upheaval caused to the people arrested?

Will someone higher up get the chop, we will never find out, but we should. The machine will keep right on going, until the next "cull" of unwanted staff, as in the Scottish helicopter "accident", which took out a large number of Irish anti-reformism top brass. Of course, that had to be just coincidental, didn't it? I have my own thoughts on it.

I will be putting all the latest police complaints stuff I can unearth in a future link, updated weekly.