IN reply to Mr Pooley, whose letter we publish on this page, the problem for the police is not that they have our "grudging support" but that in too many instances their decisions and priorities don't have our support at all.

And it's not just us raising concerns. This week we have members of Malvern Town Council expressing a lack of confidence in West Mercia Police as the result of a perceived lack of action over the issue of vandalism in Victoria Park.

These are just the kind of people who in the not too distant past would, as Mr Pooley suggests they should, have always been supportive of the police.

At a meeting this week, Les Eaton, chairman of the Malvern Police Community Consultative Group highlighted the fact that it was anti-social behaviour that is a real focus of public concern.

He had used cuttings from the Malvern Gazette to settle a debate within the group about whether this was just a fear of crime or whether actual incidents were taking place.

This conundrum goes to the heart of what we believe to have been a conscious policy by the police to provide us, and thus you the public, with less information about what crime does take place in our area, so as not to feed this fear of crime.

We are lucky to live in an area where vandalism and anti-social behaviour is our biggest concern rather than more serious crime, nonetheless for us it is serious and in order to push the issue higher up the police agenda it is important the public keep reporting incidents to us and that we continue to give them a high priority.

The police need to work with us and the public to name and shame persistent young offenders. Never mind their rights, what about everybody else?