In its great days, Hollywood would have made Tim Bradshaw the hero of a fine, inspiring film, perhaps played by James Stewart. An admiring world would have watched him stand up to louts and petty criminals, and win a victory for law and decency.

No doubt, in such a drama, his home town would garland him with praise and he would rapidly be put in charge of the local force, cleaning up crime and disorder and bringing back peace and safety. 

But things do not happen like that any more, in Hollywood or, more importantly, in Britain.

In these dismal times, police officers like Mr Bradshaw are a rarity, and it is not hard to see why in the light of cases such as this. 

Instead of being an admired example, Tim Bradshaw has left the police in despair and is now driving a bus, where he is openly insulted by the drugged, cynical and violent youths he tried to discipline.

Why has this happened? It is clear from his recent acquittal by a jury that the public regard him as a force for good. 

That Portsmouth jury took just 20 minutes to declare him innocent of the ridiculous charge of ‘causing serious injury by dangerous driving’, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

We have to wonder what went through the minds of the Crown Prosecution Service when they approved this charge against a popular and effective police officer. 

In these dismal times, police officers like Tim Bradshaw (pictured) are a rarity, and it is not hard to see why in the light of cases such as this 

Mr Bradshaw used his patrol car to knock two ‘prolific’ offenders off their e-bike

A Portsmouth jury took just 20 minutes to declare him innocent of the ridiculous charge of ‘causing serious injury by dangerous driving 

He had used his marked police car to nudge an electric motorbike being ridden dangerously, at speeds up to 50mph, by two young men with long criminal records. 

Mr Bradshaw pointed out that just such a ‘tactical contact’ manoeuvre had been authorised previously by his superiors, and he was permitted to use reasonable force.

But this case goes far beyond the matter for which Mr Bradshaw was tried. Our report today, by Ian Gallagher and Nick Constable, describes the sort of police officer Mr Bradshaw used to be. Any law-abiding man or woman would long to have such a person on the beat in his area, if there was a beat for him to be on.

Interested in his surroundings, observant, thoughtful and committed, sympathetic to misfortune without being soppy or weak, he is exactly the sort of officer Sir Robert Peel would have hoped to find in the police force he founded nearly 200 years ago.

 Many of The Mail on Sunday’s older readers will recall the era, not in fact all that long ago, when such people were the backbone of a police force which was visible, effective, feared by the bad and trusted by the good.

Plenty of younger people know that they, too, would like such officers in their lives, as the jury verdict suggests. 

Yet it looks to us as if, while the people of Bognor Regis will miss their traditional constable, his superiors will be relieved he has gone. This is not the way they like to do things any more. If the new style of policing worked well, then we could see their point. But we all know it does not.

We are told that crime is falling – but this is only because the modern authorities no longer view many wicked acts as crimes. They have retreated, and then retreated more, and are close to defeat.

It is not just a disgrace that Mr Bradshaw is no longer a police officer. It is a mistake.

Sooner or later our police must undergo sweeping reform to make them serve us as we wish to be served. Sooner would be better.