Fore!

GOLF, goes the old saying, is a good walk spoiled. For those who love the game, that always raises a wry smile. For if there was ever a game to delight and - a very short time later - infuriate, then it is golf.

For Mike Veale, one bad shot was to have embarrassing and longlasting consequences. Mr Veale, now the Chief Constable of the Cleveland force, was in charge at Wiltshire Police when he followed a bad shot by swinging his club at his golf bag. This resulted in his work mobile phone being broken.

Rather ill-advisedly, he then told colleagues that he had dropped the phone in the golf club car park and it had been run over.

But inconsistencies in his story led police watchdogs the IOPC to launch an investigation.

And then the conspiracy theorists took over. As Mr Veale's then force was investigating allegations of historic child abuse against the late former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, the breaking of the chief constable's phone morphed in some people's minds into the deep state's cover-up of a sex ring in high places, allegations which are almost certainly nonsense.

Eventually, Mr Veale had to come clean. That was embarrassing for him, but he can now put it behind him. The conspiracy theorists may not be happy, but then they never are.

The lesson for Mr Veale, and indeed for anyone who ventures on to the fairways, is that it is best to respond to shanking a nine iron into the deep rough with nothing more violent