MANY recent letters to The Argus have focussed on the decline of our city. Readers have described widespread drug use, graffiti yobs running free and the terrible state of city bins.

I am a recently retired policeman with forty years experience on the force, walking the beat in this seaside city, so I feel fairly qualified to comment on Brighton and Hove's supposed downward trajectory.

I've fought crime in its many manifestations - from gangs of hard men to football hooligans, from illegal drinking establishments to bad littering. I've seen crime sprees and spikes in violence and apprehended burglars. With this in mind, though, I have to sadly confirm that I think our dear city has indeed gone to the dogs.

Crime will always be with us in some form or another. Brighton is a town where people come to have a good time, to enjoy the pubs and clubs and get whoozy on the seafront - there will always be rough housing and alcohol related problems.

It is only in recent years I have seen this huge spike in the use of illegal drugs. In my last days as a Bobby I would often see people openly using the drug "weed" in the street and would endeavour to make an arrest. My colleagues weren't interested, saying it caused "too much paperwork". I wondered if they would turn their blind eye to more heinous crimes? The bin situation in Brighton has become absurd - so absurd in fact that a dangerous vigilante group has emerged and taken the law into their own hands. The graffiti situation in the town is beyond a joke. People are seen scrawling their "tags" on properties in broad daylight and ignored.

I don't want to sound like some nostalgic old codger leafing through past issues of Punch and pranging on about some imagined past utopia, but the very essence of crime has changed. There used to be a huge gang culture in Brighton, but it was a gang culture that operated with some level of decorum. You wouldn't find gangsters involving grockles and blow-ins down for a nice weekend, and if you weren't involved you were generally safe. These groups were easy to keep an eye on. Likewise, burglars didn't used to attack their victims, preferring instead a burglarious entry via a drainpipe or ladder before creeping off into the night. A quick look round the town's pawnbrokers would often have a victim's goods back to them, the burglar later tracked, seized and thrown into jail.

I and many other policemen have spent years finding it harder and harder to operate and to do our jobs. I am glad to be out of it, but I miss the days where I was permitted to police with pride. I feel for the young ones coming up. As I sit here, a retired Bobby, reflecting on all my years I wish to tell the future of our fine force never to lose hope. I glance over to the mantelpiece where sits my helmet and cufflinks. Here's to the force, and for the hope that they can make Brighton a safer cleaner place once again!

Harry Roberts

Palmeira Square

Hove