DOORSTEP conmen are a growing blight on the lives of elderly and vulnerable people.

Barely a day goes by without a criminal or a group of them turning up at a victim's house.

The cons can take many forms, from a bogus water board official tricking their way into a house and sneaking off with the owner or tenant's life savings, to the cowboy roofer or builder who arrives uninvited and later demands hundreds or thousands of pounds for work which is shoddy or has not been done in the first place.

Swindon police are to be commended for Operation Litotes, a bid to crack down on the perpetrators using a combination of high technology and good old fashioned "coppering".

But responsibility for the crackdown should not be left entirely to the police. As members of the community we all have our role to play. It is our duty to keep an eye out for our neighbours and report suspicious characters.

And it is the duty of the courts to act accordingly when those who commit these crimes are in the dock and awaiting sentence.