I can honestly say that throughout my entire police service - well over twenty years - I worked alongside officers from most of the 43 police forces in this country, regularly in the most densely populated multi-cultural areas, and I never saw even the slightest example of institutional racism.

Occasionally individual frustrations spilled over in tense, difficult, intimidating and dangerous situations. This sometimes led to inappropriate comments and behaviour being displayed in the heat of the moment. The individuals involved were then subject to the full rigours of the law, not the least of which being the police discipline code. This can lead to an officer being dismissed from the service.

Every area of the police service does its utmost to deal strongly and swiftly with any such event but it is important to acknowledge that, particularly in the world of law enforcement, you cannot please all of the people all of the time. Police officers have to and will continue to keep dying trying.

Police racism allegations such as those surrounding highly publicised crimes, such as the Stephen Lawrence murder, and also some of the large scale public (dis)order events heard about in the news, sadden me in terms of the state of the nation as a whole. I can therefore only ask that any such allegations, if proven to be true, do not overshadow the amazing and selfless work that the very great majority of our police officers undertake every single day and night of the year.