SHOCK news in my Echo of the proposed retirement of much respected top Hampshire Police Officer Paul Kernaghan, pictured, whose period of service to our County's law abiding citizens is somewhat of a modern miracle among our country's crime wave, with its too short sentences aided by the notorious CPS and the hands of out police cut off by lack of Government initiative by lack of numbers on our streets and lengthy paperwork and much, much more.

Through all this Mr Kernaghan has run a tight ship', he may recall the few times I have enlisted his aid in putting me in touch with a few departments, one in particular he may not want to recall concerning the police spotter unit place and an unidentified flying object' (UFO) over Southampton Water two years in succession, 2000 and 2001!

Which took myself, representing the Southampton UFO Group (SUFOG) as its PRO, all the way up to the then Under Secretary of Defence Sir Lewis Mooney.

Mr Kernaghan deserves unlimited congratulations by all of us for his splendid treatment (along with his police force) of our crime scene making a fine (and almost unique) example of just how to resolve almost nationally insurmountable problems in that area. He surely will be sadly missed and I hope he listens to us old uns' in his future plans, to flee this country with its incredible useless Government (the worse I've known in my 84 years along with fellow sufferers) and seize any suitable opportunities in, for example, Australia or New Zealand, which my connections' in various areas confirm such. Hurry up, though, after your October retirement date, we may not have long!

ERNIE SEARS, Netley Abbey.