If you want to keep your hi-fi, keep it quiet! 

YOU come home in the early hours from a good night out with some pals with a mind to carry on the fun. On goes the hi-fi at full blast. So your neighbours have kids asleep, or have no sympathy for party animals like yourselves – you want to let the gang hear your latest Hard House CD! Then, can you believe it they knock on the wall. But you’re not unfriendly and go to their door and (admittedly rather drunkenly) invite them to join you. In their pyjamas, they say no thanks. So you turn it up again. Next the police come to the door and ask you to cool it. “Shoor ossifer,” you say, and turn down the sound until they are safely out of earshot. After all, are they going to bother to come again – and what can they do anyway…

Well, if they get called out a second time in the one night they can take away your stereo, that’s what. And you won’t likely get it back before your case comes up in court, if then! That’s because of the latest zero tolerance policy being operated by Northern Constabulary. They’re fed up being called out to noisy neighbours who ignore their warnings – this wastes an average 10 man-hours a week in Inverness. Chief Inspector Bruce Duncan says, “We have tolerated it in the past, but no longer. This type of behaviour shows no regard for others.”  In recent weeks, since the police began their crackdown, several people have been charged with breach of the peace or similar offences.

(Merkinch Community Beat Officer A. Stewart was on holiday at time of going to press) 

A SECOND Community Beat Officer has joined fellow Lewisman PC Alistair Stewart on the Merkinch scene.

PC Norman Campbell (33), who hails from Stornoway, joined the Northern Constabulary in 1996 and has been based in Inverness ever since.

Succeeding PC Dom-inic Sermanni as Community Beat Officer is not PC Campbell’s first experience of Merkinch; he was involved in Operation Eagle which took off last year.

“As a result of Operation Eagle people are more confident about coming forward to help the police,” he said.

A fluent Gaelic speaker, PC Campbell is married his wife Margaret comes from Back, Lewis.

A keen skier, he also enjoys road-running and plays in Nairn Pipe Band.