Human touch

'I would rather have real, sentient human beings, who can laugh and cry, as police officers, than robots. I think that the police act in a sensible way. Occasionally you get a bit of nonsense, but I thought they were fine.'

Nick Hardwick, the former chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission - who made these comments about the public order officers who were filmed tobogganing on their riot shields in January - could have taken on the role of the big bad wolf, but he has largely good things to say about the police service as he leaves the organisation he has led for the past seven years.

Hundreds of thousands of people have since watched the YouTube clip of the officers playing in the snow. At the time, a senior officer issued them with a public admonishment, warning that it was a 'very bad idea', but Mr Hardwick says: 'I have always tried not to comment on cases that I was not involved in, but I will make an exception in this case.

'It looked to me like those officers were having a great time, linking sensibly with the community they were serving and I was all for it. There are lots of things like that where, actually, I think the police service interacting with the public in a human way is great.'