Sir, Following an incident in St. John's Hill on Wednesday night, with what I can only describe as a very intoxicated and anti-social person, I had cause to 'phone the police and was put through to Haverfordwest station at 9.15 pm. My wife and I watched stunned as a very drunk person proceeded to shout, bawl and be abusive to people as they passed by, and hammer on a door up the street. We had to 'phone back 10-15 minutes later to tell them that he had got bored of trying to terrorise the residents and was moving on. The control centre said that they had dispatched a unit and 'they would be with us soon'. After the street returned to its normal, some would say boring, quiet state, we settled down to watch the last minutes of the football and a late supper. To our surprise, the police knocked on our door at 9.58, almost 45 minutes after the first call. When I asked why it took so long, the officers told me that one had first to come from Llandissilio, then pick up the other officer from Narberth. All this took a lot of time. They apologised for the delay, but said that 'there were no other officers' available on duty. My question would be that if this incident had turned nasty (as it first looked that it may), is a 45-minute response time good enough? In addition, are there enough police officers on duty, to adequately police the town on a midweek night if an incident happens? Through no fault of the officers concerned, on the response time that we had, I think not! Would you please ask the Inspector if he thinks the levels of staffing midweek are adequate? Also, ask one or two of the officers privately and I suspect you would get a totally different answer. S. Fecci, 5 St. John's Hill, Tenby.
