Sir, The death of the barrister Mark Saunders last week once again raises questions about the police’s use of lethal force.

Time spent on inquiries of his partner and his family would surely have made it apparent that an intelligent man had suffered some sort of desperate mental breakdown. What would have been lost by waiting 24 hours before storming in? Why have our police become so gung-ho when a policy of containment would seem to have been feasible? I hope the inquiry into this death will ask awkward questions of those responsible.

I worry that “security” has become the great god before which we must all bow unquestioningly. I am not one who is reassured by the sight of armed officers in pairs stalking ostentatiously round our airports. There are too many guns on the streets and insufficient care and restraint in the use of police ones.

Robert Jewell

Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire

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