Seventy-nine-year-old Lulu's son Gus had been growing tomatoes at the window of the house and this sparked a full blown raid as police mistook them for cannabis.

It has turned out to be highly embarrassing for Northern Constabulary and since our revelations, an amusing debate has developed on Highland News Group websites with a series of witty jibes, some of which suggest that the raid was actually the work of the Frying Squad or Special Brunch. Our online correspondents got in character as well, signing off as Taggart, Rebus, Morse and PC Murdoch of CSI Lochcarron. There was even one claiming to be from the late drugs cartel boss Pablo Escobar in Colombia.

It was all good fun and some of the correspondence can be seen today on Page 11 in our story about the reaction.

But there is a serious side to the blunder, quite apart from why the police got it so badly wrong.

The North force is to be congratulated for making big inroads in the war on drugs in the last few months in uncovering a series of cannabis factories in the East Highlands. Senior officers are convinced there are more to be found in the area.

But the force's credibility and need for public co-operation means it really requires to go about its business in a proper and responsible manner. That does not include allowing its "intelligence" to mistake tomatoes – and there were some on the plants – for cannabis and then carrying on regardless to compound the error by frightening an old lady, holding her son in a room for two hours, handcuffing her grandson during the search and even impounding the family's pet dogs while sniffer dogs were called to the scene.

The least Northern Constabulary should do in the circumstances is be big enough to offer the apology that Lulu and Gus are still waiting for – and maybe even then raise a smile with the rest of us.

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