Copy of a letter sent to Gloucestershire Police Commissioner Martin Surl:

Dear Martin, I congratulated you on your election but expressed my doubts on your suitability because you achieved a high rank in the Glos. Constabulary and were therefore unlikely to look at policing with a fresh and independent mind.

I have held back from commenting, because I thought it best to see how things develop. I have disagreed with most of your efforts and finally need to comment on your latest wheeze re. the public survey. Do you not from your own experience know what is wrong with the police service? Why do you need an outside organisation to formulate questions that invite answers that are irrelevant.

The bottom line, as I have said before is that the police service is run by people who follow Home Office directives instead of following the duties of the police as laid down by acts of parliament, which is that the primary duty of the police is the protection of life and property. Filling out forms in police stations interferes with that primary duty. The Home Office should be told that police officers cannot collect statistics because it interferes with their primary duty and legal requirement. My fears about you appear to be justified. Please free the constables that you control to comply with the law. No excuses. Let the incompetent Home Office take a secondary role and do your job and help your constables with their primary legal duty.

– John Timbrell.