Yesterday afternoon I had to write something about the alleged 'water-boarding' of suspects by an officer in the Edmonton/Enfield crime squad. From the articles I read in the day's papers I couldn't work out where a suspect in a drug's raid had been ducked in a 'bucket or tank'. It seemed improbable that the event occured in a police station as I thought the government had insisted CCTV cameras were installed in interview rooms and that all interviews were taped. Some otherwise helpful women on the Enfield Independent, which has good coverage of the case, couldn't clear that mystery up.

My interest in this was merely connected to the fact that I have written about water-boarding by the CIA. I am not a Crime Reporter, and I have no interest in doing down the men and women in blue.

So I rang the Met press office, merely to ask whether my general perception was right. A nice woman checked with her bosses and then said they couldn't help. They referred me to the Indendent Police Complaints Commission. A nice woman there couldn't understand why the Met weren't more helpful and made a call. She then told me to ring the same number. A more senior police man said I shouldn;t have been given the number by the IPCC, and that he couldn't help with my inquiry. He suggested I ring the Home Office press office. The press officer there said he'd check and call back. He said they wouldn't be able to help either. So much for open government and transparency.

It transpires that I had inadvertently identifed a problem cleared up elsewhere this morning. Silly me. I had forgotten about the lavatories. There are no CCTV cameras in there and one could, if so minded, shove someone's head down the bowl and flush it. Of course that is just an allegation.

What concerns me here is that my perception, gleaned from occasional footage of murderers being interviewed on the news or Crimewatch, was that there WERE cameras in interview rooms as governments claimed there would be after the Birmingham Six debacle. In fact, there may not be - for why else were they all so unhelpful - and nor are they in the lavatories. Where there's a will there's a way.