The stories of police abuse of power and authority takes me back to the very early 90s. Then, I was dating my girlfriend, now wonderful wife, and one evening at a car parking area of the busy stretch of beach at Tanjung Aru, Kota Kinabalu, a plainclothes policeman approached us.

And this is what he did.

He knocked on the door of my car and asked for mine and my wife-to-be identification cards. After checking them, he asked that I open the boot of my car. This was obviously in full view of many other people. I did as he asked. I then got bold and asked that he prove to me that he was a policeman and that he was on duty.

After, he had shown me his authority card and a revolver, he very softly and slowly, measuring each and every word, said that arrangements can be made that white powder would be found in the boot of my car - at the police station. He wanted me to drive there next.

However, he said, for RM50 he will let us go. I told him I was not breaking any law by being at the public beach. However, he did not see it that way. We said, we had only RM20, and I surrendered that to him. The policeman, after taking our money, left us. I was by then seething in anger, frustration and also fear. Fear, not so much for myself (for I was crazy in those days and would have gone to the police station to make a report), but for the worry of what my girl and her family will take on the matter.

Now I am older and somewhat wiser and have grown up with absolutely no respect for the police force. Believe me after what one CID officer told me about what is literally going on day in day out within that 'organisation' - you too would not have much faith in them.

Shame on the police force!