THERE are some ingenuous or disingenuous people about, are there not?

Attempting to discredit the victims of crime or those associated with them is one of the oldest tricks in the book, when the police are disinclined, for whatever reason, to proceed correctly with an investigation.

Although the Lawrence scandal was always a likely archetypal target for such misconduct, let me assure your readers that, for this obscenity to occur, it does not need to be a question of murder, those concerned do not have to be black and that such malpractice is by no means restricted to the Met.

Depending on the tenacity (and awareness, of course) of those on the receiving end, a whitewash or two – perhaps involving high-ranking individuals and conceivably the police complaints department – may ensue, though this does not necessarily imply that the culprits do not receive a severe private reprimand.

I obviously trust this will not be so, if the whistle-blowing former undercover officer’s claims are true in this most high-profile of cases, though it would have been preferable for him to come clean a couple of decades ago.

I myself naïvely assumed this probably alleged aspect to the corruption had already been brought out into the open at some stage.

Finally, there should obviously be one enquiry, publicly conducted at the very highest presumed independent level, with considerable light also being shed on the current extent of such abominations and the precise ranks of those who unleash them.

DAVID DIMENT

Riverside Court

Oxford