Today at lunchtime I was alerted by a colleague, to an uncommon sight: a uniformed officer of the law, smoking. A smoking plod is probably just as likely as a smoking anybody, but I can’t remember ever seeing an officer smoking in uniform. This one wore little blue epaulettes and a bright yellow arm band that suggested that he was a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) rather than a Police Constable (PC). He had his hat off, so perhaps he was on a break, but it was a strange sight nonetheless.

The reason this sighting was particularly noteworthy, was that my colleague followed his observation with a prediction: that the PCSO would throw his cigarette butt to the ground. So we watched for a few seconds; each twitch of the arm studied with mounting intrigue. After about 20 seconds, an arm flick was followed by a deft hip-pivot, as the butt was crushed below the sole of his polished black shoe. What he didn’t do next, was bend down and pick it up, it thus became litter.

At a time when other councils are pushing the £75 fine for smoking litter (no matter how young), when some claim they’ve been incorrectly accused of dropping litter, and when people are being chased by all means because of zero tolerance policies, this just seemed wrong.

To be a fair system, there should be one rule for all citizens. Cigarette litter is a huge problem, and the police are not above the law. We could have run down to the car park, taken his number and reported him, but on this occasion we chose to chicken out and “let him off without a caution”. If it happens again we might be more bold and ask him to caution himself.