Doddery pensioners and recalcitrant drunks are frequently hauled before the bench for shoplifting £5 bottles of wine and yet a town's police chief, arrested under suspicion of a similar offence, does not make the courts.

Incredibly, the Crown Prosecution Service said it was "not in the public interest".

This is wrong for Chief Insp Rowe – she should have the chance to see the evidence tested in court.

It's wrong for the public, who are denied the truth because the facts will now be played out behind the firmly closed doors of a police internal inquiry.

And it's particularly wrong, as some senior officers will admit in private, for the damage this decision could do to the reputation and often fragile morale of the police force itself.

Finally, it's wrong in the name of Det Chief Insp Jim Torbet, the officer who was arrested along with Chief Insp Rowe, and who hanged himself in the week he was due to answer police bail.

Imagine – a senior police officer arrested for alleged shoplifting and no-one will ever be able to judge, on evidence presented in public, if the sensational allegation was true or not.

It just wasn't in the public interest.


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