IN response to my suggestion (Letters, November 28) for more independent policing in Scotland, John Martin (Letters, November 29) offered the example of the Metropolitan Police Force as a single police force in London.
I am not sure if that is the best example to cite because in the 1970s a section of the CID in the Metropolitan Police Force was discovered to be institutionally corrupt. The most worrying aspect of that scenario, to my mind, was that some police officers within that force not only refused to intervene but were in fact obstructive to any investigation. The point is that it was only when a Senior Officer (later Sir Robert Mark) was brought in from another Force (Leicester)and later from Hampshire and Dorset in Operation Countryman that it proved possible to resolve these problems at all.
I also feel that the closeness of the Celtic approach presents added dangers in these areas as the sorry history of the Guardia as a single police force in Ireland amply demonstrates.
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As ever, to ignore history is to face the prospect of repeating it.
Richard NM Anderson,
c/o The Faculty of Advocates,
Parliament House, Edinburgh.