MADAM, The tragic murder of two Police Officers in Manchester reminds me of an incident early in the 1960s when I was a working as a Detective.

A colleague and I were investigating an armed robbery and called at the house of a suspect. We knocked on the door and eventually he came to the door and we detained him.

We found evidence in the house to connect him with the robbery and arrested him. I asked: "Where is the gun?" He replied: "In the back garden. When I saw you at the door I put one up the spout and thought about shooting it out but I didn't want to get topped (hanged) so I threw it out into the garden."

We found the weapon, a sawn-off .410 shot gun loaded with one round, in a bed of nettles in the garden, just as he had said.

A lucky escape for one of us but at that time we were protected by the law, which prescribed death by hanging for murder of a police officer. Who or what now protects our protectors?

Mr F G A Benbow, Ross