LAST week I railed against people taking the law into their own hands in the wake of self-appointed crime fighters taking to social media, but it appears I may have been wrong.

The Skipper is not one to lightly admit fault, but on the merits of people carrying out their own policing it seems I was not singing from the same rap-sheet as our Cornish constabulary, who on Friday urged communities to “get more involved” in sorting out crime themselves.

It appears that due to this government’s continuing austerity measures, yet more officers are being lost or not replaced, meaning those who remain will only be able to look into “highest risk, threat and harm” cases, meanwhile homemade Miss Marples and community Clouseau’s will be asked to deal with “low risk, threat and harm” crime.

The problem is, it is exactly this kind of do-it-yourself approach to policing, coupled with the closure of police station front offices across the county, with the loss of visible officers, which leads to disillusionment with hardworking frontline officers, creating an atmosphere ripe for fear-mongering, vigilantism, and the kind of witch hunt so narrowly avoided recently. 

If people feel they can’t access the police, they will take to social media, and possibly to the streets.

Moreover, while it is agreed that high risk crime such as child, sexual, and domestic abuse need urgent attention, not everyone is capable of dealing with low priority issues such as criminal damage themselves.

An 80-year-old who’s had her jewellery stolen is far more likely to feel alone and victimised than to sleuth it out, and faced with smashed windows and graffiti, whose to say our hero will be by-the-book DI Sam Tyler, not down and dirty DCI Gene Hunt?