The average operational constable and sergeant works seven days’ night shift, with two days off, seven days’ late shift, with two days off, and seven days’ early shift, with three days off.

Eight hours per day equals 56 hours before any required/unknown overtime accrued.

This is not the full picture though, as more often than not, rest days are spent at court.

I have seen some guys working 16 days without a full day off.

We have a system of re-rostering rest days, but that is only if manpower is sufficient to claim a specific day.

The gaffers will tell you that we work a 40-hour week when two annual rest days every two or three months are included in average working time. But the fact is in real life, we work 56 hours per week at least.

The worst part of the shift system is the changing over from night shift to late shift. Finishing at 7am on Tuesday morning to realign sleep pattern in time for starting at 3pm on Thursday is not easy and family life is very disrupted. — Name and Address Supplied

I AM a wife and a mother of two young children married to a police officer.

My husband carries out a seven-day, eight-hour shift, which accumulates to 56 hours a week.

The shift pattern being nightshift from Tuesdays, starting at 11pm to 7am, finishing the following Monday.

There is then a two-day rest period and duties resume on Thursdays at 3pm, until 11pm the following Wednesday.

There is another two-day rest period and then he starts on Saturday morning on the early shift at 7am and finishes at 3pm on Friday.

Apart from these shifts, he has to attend court, no matter what shift he is on.

I have actually seen him attend court on the late shift 9.45am and he does not arrive home until after 11pm, meaning he has worked a marathon 13 hours in a day.

Also the court cases may well run into the next day.

On the night shift, I have also seen him again attending court and being there most if the day. When he returns home he has to go to his bed for a sleep as he has to go back to work again at 11pm.

While he is on rest days, I have also seen him attending court. — Stressed-Out Wife.

It illustrates why this regime is considered by many to be a danger to the West.

Had the shoe been on the other foot, Israel would have been denounced as a serious threat to world peace. — Ardler Village.

WHY IS it that when Tony Blair takes a hard line with Iran he is accused of war-mongering, yet when the Iranian president openly calls for military action that would lead to the murder of five million Jews, there is a deafening silence? — C. E. C.

Dundee administration leader Jill Shimi has already pointed out the benefits to Angus of a completed Waterfront.

But if it’s to happen, Dundee City Council needs all the funds it can get its hands on. — J.S., Dundee.

This is exactly what more than a dozen passengers did this morning, to get to the Tech Park and on to Invergowrie.

I left home in Stobswell at 7.55am to catch the Kingoodie 8.15am bus to work and hopefully arrive early for a change, but the plan didn’t work.

Because of private traffic on the road the bus arrived at 8.50am — over half-an-hour late.

Despite getting the “earlier” bus, I didn’t get to work until 9.30am — that’s over an hour-and- a-half to travel less than four miles. About the same time as a trip to Aberdeen, Glasgow or Edinburgh.

What many car owners seem to forget is that:

1. You have the choice of leaving home 10 minutes early, but bus users are bound by a timetable.

2. You have the choice of route.

Until a year ago, the 8.44am bus to Invergowrie guaranteed we’d be at our desks by 9.10 in the morning, at the latest. Now we are lucky to get to work by 10am.

Dundee City Council recently received praise from the Holyrood Executive for their public transport initiative. We are wondering how they manage to maintain they are making life easier for bus users when the kind of delay experienced today is the norm.

The only thing we can do is get up even earlier and lose even more personal time for what should be a 15-minute journey. Would a car user be happy doing this every day? — Late Again.

Scotland’s First Minister, Jack McConnell, stated in the Scottish Parliament that anyone displaying this behaviour would be subject to the rule of the law.

Well, I and thousands of law-abiding people witnessed a good proportion of the Rangers and Celtic support indulging in this behaviour and, despite there being a sizeable police presence, absolutely nothing was done.

I have contacted Dundee United re this matter and they have suggested nothing can be done at their end and that the matter rests with the police.

I believe they should decline to give tickets for visiting teams’ supporters who repeatedly behave in this manner.

We don’t need this kind of bile in Dundee. — Dundee Hibs 1909.