• IT seems to me that your reporter and Katrina Ffrench, chief executive of stop and search monitoring charity StopWatch, were looking down the wrong end of the telescope, (Camden police use stop and search more than 30 times a day, new figures reveal, July 18).

The report states: “…that 74 per cent of searches have resulted in no further action being taken” and therefore it was a failure.

However, looking at it from the other end it tells us that 26 per cent, that is more than one-in-four, of the people searched did have action taken against them presumably because they were carrying weapons.

If one-in-four of the people on the streets are carrying weapons, I find that a very frightening prospect. And I certainly wouldn’t consider stop and search to be failure in those circumstances

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

• The Editor writes: To clarify, the 26 per cent relates to action taken by police on any matter. Weapons, points and blade offences occurred in just under 6 per cent of cases (one in 17 of those stopped).