IT GOES without saying that the police who had to deal with horror of the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989 had a harrowing ordeal.

But so, too, had thousands of fans that day.

So, too, had the victims' families.

It is, therefore, an insult to common sense and, more so, to natural justice that four of the officers involved should win compensation claims for psychological damage - when only a few of the victims' relatives have been remunerated and none of the supporters who helped on the pitch that day has received a penny.

And it would remain an affront even if there was not this comparison to make.

For are not our police, and the members of the other emergency services, paid and trained to deal with distressing tragedies? And when they choose such careers, can they not be expected to be confronted by them at some time?

Furthermore, in this instance, there is the irony of the police themselves being among those responsible for the events that these officers say caused them mental trauma.

But what is worrying about the Appeal Court judgment in their favour is the precedent it sets.

It used to be that, for the police and emergency workers, coping with tragedy and disaster was all part of the job.

Afterwards they got on with the job without compensation or even counselling.

Now, amid an outlook that increasingly considers that every scar, physical or mental, can be salved with cash, the floodgates are opened for all sorts of claims from members of the emergency services.

It is the taxpayer who stands to be severely traumatised.

That this should happen is not only unfair and ridiculous, but doubly so when hundreds who suffered the same or even worse ordeals at Hillsborough than these officers are having to grit their teeth and bear it still.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.