Dear Deputy Assistant Commissioner Malcolm Sullivan

Congratulations] The local police in Islington, part of your patch, have come in for a good deal of criticism in the past, so it's good to see reports that they've arrested someone, a television sports commentator indeed, and charged him with gross indecency. According to reports in the tabloids, your officers claim to have seen Gerald Sinstadt and another man 'fondling themselves' (though not each other) at the Fantasy II cinema in Islington, north London.

As I'm sure you are aware, there's so much crime in Islington the police scarcely have the resources to record it, let alone catch the criminals. When our neighbours were robbed last year, your men turned up in the early hours to examine the damage and did not even have time to look at the next house, where our own cellar door had been kicked in.

Your crime prevention officer was extremely charming when he came round a few days later. He told us all about the opportunist thieves of the district - 'toe-rags' he called them - and said it was years since he'd seen a really classy burglary.

Then a few months later, with our cellar wall rebuilt, the same toe-rags tried the front window, damaging the woodwork and snapping a catch. But the locks held. I mentioned it to a couple of police officers passing the next day, and they commiserated with a knowing glance towards the window. Three houses in the street had been less fortunate the previous night.

I have occasionally wondered why, in a road that burglars seem to visit every couple of months at about 3am, we don't occasionally hear of one being caught by the police taking a stroll down the street at the same time. Can it be that they are too busy putting in overtime on what must be Islington's most popular beat, preventing masturbation in porno cinemas?

I'm more an Odeon or Screen on the Green man myself, but I've always imagined that that was basically what porno cinemas were for. What were Mr Sinstadt and other audience members expected to be doing? Admiring the cinematography? Discussing the method acting? Drooling at the lip-sync?

Still, as we lie in our beds and listen to the tinkling of smashed quarterlights, as we try to ignore the ringing of car and house alarms, as old ladies move in convoys down the street to collect their pensions, we can at least reassure ourselves that the porn cinemas of Islington are being kept safe for our children.

What a wise allocation of police resources] Rather than frittering away my council tax on crimes with real victims, rather than responding to the complaints of the public, you allow your officers to sit in the dark and spy on sad old men. Gerald Sinstadt hasn't done me any harm and isn't likely to, but you have - you've wasted my money. Fancy a person of your position and responsibility being caught behaving like this. You should be ashamed of yourself.

(Photograph omitted)