IT is a strange phenomenon that we sometimes have to borrow words from other languages to sum up exactly what we mean.

Take for example the feeling of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction you may get from witnessing or finding out about the troubles, failures, or humiliation of someone else.

The English language takes a whole paragraph to explain the experience but the Greeks sum it up succinctly with the word epicharikaky (thank you Wikipedia for that one) which apparently is a compound word made up from expressions of joy and evil.

But it’s the German word schadenfreude that has gained common currency in the English speaking world. I wonder then, if schadenfreude is the word running round in the head of John Dwyer.

If you don’t know who Mr Dwyer is, I’ll give a quick history lesson.

He was the first police and crime commissioner for Cheshire. A Conservative, he held the post until 2016 after being elected in 2012.

Mr Dwyer was previously a borough councillor and is also a retired assistant chief constable of Cheshire Constabulary.

So far so good but Mr Dwyer’s tenure as PCC was a little shorter than he perhaps expected it to be.

In the elections of May 2016, David Keane a Warrington borough councillor, representing the Labour party, pulled off something of a shock victory in the PCC elections, thereby ousting Mr Dwyer.

Fast forward to the present time and who was an interested spectator at the hearing into gross misconduct charges brought by David Keane against the current chief constable Simon Byrne?

None other than John Dwyer – the man who appointed Simon Byrne in the first place.

I think it’s fair to say David Keane had a significantly uncomfortable time under questioning at the disciplinary hearing from Mr Byrne’s QC when time and again he was accused of failing to follow the correct procedure.

It sort of ended ok (for the time being) for Mr Keane with Rachel Crasnow QC, who chaired the proceedings, saying that a number of failings during the investigation had the potential to ‘discredit public confidence’ and caused a ‘degree of unfairness’ to the chief constable and that the panel recognised and agreed with the chief constable that the procedure had ‘fallen short of the expected standards’.

But it was concluded there was no significant prejudice by these breaches and Mr Byrne could have a fair hearing, Mr Byrne will now have to answer the accusations and David Keane is more or less vindicated over his decision to cite the chief constable for gross misconduct.

(Without getting too legally technical here, Mr Byrne denies all the allegations against him and there may be a judicial review into the panel’s findings.) Anyway, back to Mr Dwyer.

It seems like there’s little love lost between him and commissioner Keane.

No sooner had the disciplinary panel made its decision public than the former PCC called for the current PCC to resign, saying: “His approach to the role of police and crime commissioner is doing a disservice to the people of Cheshire, a disservice to the hard-working men and women of the Cheshire Constabulary and a disservice to the post of police and crime commissioner for Cheshire.”

(Mr Keane says he’s not going to stand down, by the way which can hardly come as any surprise given the amount of criticism he’s managed to ride out in the past two years.) And who do I blame for all this?

There is no doubt in my mind the blame lies fairly and squarely at the door of the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition government that foisted expensive PCCs on us, instantly politicising the governance of police services across the country in a theoretical attempt to give some control of policing back to the people.

Frankly, I can’t see any evidence of Cheshire voters having much control over the county’s police and crime commissioner.

We never had this kind of mess under the former (cheaper) Cheshire Police Authority system.

Perhaps the old adage: ‘If it isn’t broke don’t’ fix it’ applies.

By our columnist The Fly in the Ointment