Remember Janet Reno taking, as she put it, full responsibility for the Waco disaster, except that she didn't resign or fire anyone? Some responsibility.

So this crops in Nottinghamshire:

The report published yesterday by the chief inspector of probation, Rod Morgan, on the death of PC Gerald Walker in Nottingham in January last year includes scathing criticism of probation officers, Home Office ministers, and the management of the Nottinghamshire and national probation services.

David Parfitt, 26, had been released early from Ranby prison under licence in a pilot scheme. The condition was that he should pass two drug tests each week.

Professor Morgan found that Parfitt regularly breached his licence conditions. He missed seven appointments - on one occasion saying he "was feeling unwell as he had been smoking heroin heavily", and failed 10 out of 19 drug tests.

The probation officer should have instigated the revocation of his licence, his arrest, and his recall to prison in September 2002, but he continued to show "inappropriate leniency" for a further three months.

Parfitt was being tracked by police officers after his licence was officially revoked in Dec-ember 2002. He was on the run when Walker tried to stop him in a stolen taxi.

Parfitt sped off and the dog handler was dragged by the speeding car. Walker died two days later from head injuries. Parfitt was captured the next day. He was jailed for 13 years in December 2003 for manslaughter.

David Hancock, Nottinghamshire's chief probation officer, said that he took full responsibility for the failures of his staff. and that he had apologised to Mrs Walker. But no disciplinary action has been taken against staff.

Mr Hancock said the probation officer was very experienced but that she had failed to absorb the "finer details" of the guidelines on the drug-testing programme.