A salutary lesson

- for Paul Leicester. According to the report in the Daily Mail yesterday, he was out in town celebrating his 18th birthday.

He found a mobile phone, rang the number of the last caller to it and told them he would take the phone to the Police Station the next day.

He did exactly that but when he arrived at the Police Station to hand over the mobile, he was rested for "theft by finding"the mobile. He was kept there for four hours, and had his fingerprints and DNA taken, and a photo for police records. He is thus a marked man, on the datafile! (I always understood that theft involves the "intention to permanently deprive", which hardly applies here. But perhaps in our looming police state this is another protection we have lost!)

Finally he was grilled by officers for 15 minutes about the alleged theft, and then allowed to go, apparently without charge. The police subsequently contacted him over the incident, and then announced that he did not wish to make a complaint against them.

The Southport College 'A' level student wants to publicise the incident, and pointed out to journalists that he would not repeat his promise to go to the police station, but merely tell the last caller that he could call for it if he wished. (I am not sure that this is a good idea. The"last caller" could report his retention to the police. Perhaps this happened on this occasion - this is one explanation for their absurd behaviour!

Who can blame him if he lost his sense of public spiritedness entirely? Who will be impressed by the actions of the police, who are already in low public esteem for not visiting sites of small thefts already, among their other failings?