I was appalled at the treatment of David Magson, who was criminalised for standing up to a gang of yobs, who had been given a free rein by the police ("Court punishes father who stood up to yobs", Mercury, June 22).

It is particularly embarrassing for me as, living on the Continent, I am asked: "What on earth is going on in Britain?" I can only reply that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

However, this did not surprise me, as my own faith in the police has been destroyed in the last year.

My son's girlfriend's car was stolen on a visit from Leicester to Northampton. Although the police caught the thieves in the car, which they had written off, they declined to prosecute because "they could not prove which one had stolen the car".

It beggars belief, doesn't it ?

Worse was to come. Having moved abroad, I made two short visits to Northampton in my properly-insured and taxed Spanish-registered car. After 67 days in the UK, my car was stolen, sorry "impounded", by the Northamptonshire Police for "being in the country for more than six months in a year without Road Tax having been paid". Apparently they had spotted the car on their cameras once in June last year and then again, just once, in March this year.

It did not occur to them that the reason it had not been seen for nine months was because it was back on the Continent.

The policeman refused to examine the documents that proved when it had entered the country.

After several days and a great deal of worry, the car was returned without the payment of the £410 they had demanded. But, when I complained, they replied that they were correct to impound it and should not have returned it to me.

They also stated that two sightings of any foreign vehicle, more than six months apart, will result in an "impounding" – good news for tourists and expatriates!

So, car thieves are not prosecuted, but law-abiding motorists can be harassed and exploited.

I always believed that good policing depended on the support of the law-abiding public. The police obviously do not agree, as they seem not to care what decent people think of them.

I now regard them with suspicion and disgust. My son, one of the next generation of law-abiding citizens, having seen the way I was treated, feels the same.

I can only assume that, like MPs, the police now feel they are above the Law.

Peter West, Puntous, France.