MR BLUNKETT WAS RIGHT TO FORCE OUT THIS CHIEF CONSTABLE

Whether it is described as retirement, resignation or simply the
sack, the departure yesterday of Paul Whitehouse, the Chief Constable
of Sussex, was not only necessary but overdue. Many questions still
surround the 1998 police raid on a flat in St Leonards, near
Hastings, in which James Ashley, unarmed and naked, was shot dead in
the mistaken belief that he was a dangerous drugs kingpin. But two
facts cannot be challenged. The raid was an inexcusable error, in
which faulty intelligence was compounded by blundering execution.
And, until yesterday, no one had been forced to assume responsibility
for it.

The affair is in every respect a tragedy: for Mr Ashley and his
family, for the reputation of the Sussex Police, long one of the most
admired in the country, and for Mr Whitehouse himself, a
reform-minded Chief Constable. It is also an object lesson into why
Britain's police should only be armed in the most exceptional
circumstances.

Mr Whitehouse may not have directly planned an operation which went
so catastrophically awry. But neither is he being a made a scapegoat
for it. Instead of remaining neutral and letting an independent
investigation take its course, he attempted to absolve his men with
statements that, as an official report concluded, were "at best
misleading and inaccurate", and "a wilful failure to tell the truth
as he knew it".

It is one thing for a commander not to abandon his men, but quite
another to take part in what amounts to special pleading on their
behalf. Then last week Mr Whitehouse added insult to injury by
promoting two of the officers involved in organising the raid, even
though they were still suspended. For David Blunkett that was,
understandably, the last straw. But why, ordinary people will ask,
did it need an extraordinary public demand by the Home Secretary for
the Chief Constable's dismissal to bring about what should have
happened long since?

It was right for Mr Blunkett to take this step. If his action
presages a more hands-on approach by the Government towards
individual forces, with more comparisons of performance and less
autonomy for individual forces to resist change, we welcome it. The
actions of Mr Whitehouse and Sussex police have shown the ease with
which one force can undermine confidence in the police. Yesterday saw
a small step in the rebuilding of that confidence. The sad thing is a
politician, and not the police themselves, should have been called
upon to take it.