NOW that Sakchai Makao is back home in Shetland rather than on a plane to Thailand, it's time to ask some questions about the handling of this case and to reflect on the wider implications of the whole episode. The Home Office may yet appeal against the sheriff 's decision to stop the 23-year-old Thai man's deportation, but the only possible reason forwasting yet more of taxpayers' hard-earned cash would be to try to save face.

Makao, who came to Shetland with his family when he was 10 years old, was a popular and respected sportsman, representing both Shetland and Scotland, and worked as a lifeguard at Shetland's biggest leisure centre. Four years ago, quite out of character, he set fire to a car and a stall. There were mitigating factors which have been well rehearsed, but he pleaded guilty to the charges. After his early release from prison, he was immediately offered his old job back. He has been there ever since, and has re-established his reputation as a popular and valuable member of the community.

Then came the panic over foreign nationals in Britain with a criminal record. Five weeks ago, eight officers kicked in his door in an earlymorning raid and took him on a plane south. There was outrage in Shetland, and the phone lines went into meltdown. I got a call from a trusted source that morning in a scenario that had eerie echoes of the heavy-handed dawn raids in Orkney at the time of the alleged child-abuse cases. Time was of the essence if Makao was not to be flown back to Thailand, where he knows no-one and doesn't speak the language.

Not being aware of what was being done on his behalf, a frightened Makao had his mobile phone confiscated. He was offered no legal advice. He was then taken to the high-security wing of Durham prison, where deportation papers were served on him. Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland, intervened, and retained a lawyer he knew in Newcastle. Appeal papers were lodged.

Back home, the "Shetland for Sakchai" campaign took off, under the excellent leadership of respected local man Davie Gardner. More than a third of the islands' population signed a petition protesting about what had happened. A huge rally in Lerwickwas the biggest ever seen in Shetland.

What was significant about all this was that here was an island community protesting on behalf of a foreigner with a known criminal record. It's not unknown for rural or remote communities to scapegoat "incomers"; instead, Shetland rallied behind a young man they regarded as their own.

So why, then, were eight heavies - four from Strathclyde Police and four from the Home Office - sent up to bring Sakchai down to Durham? Why were the local police cut out of the deal? One phone call would have established the kind of person Makao was, and the fact that one local bobby could have escorted him south. What was the cost of the whole unnecessary operation? You just about have to re-mortgage your house to pay for return air fares from Glasgow to the northern isles. The taxpayers have been cheated.

So why did it happen? I'll tell you why. Under pressure from the tabloids, John Reid's not-so-merry men wanted to be seen to act in macho ways. They needed, in the modern parlance, to get a "result". And how better to do it than to launch a kind of SAS raid to bring back a guy whose exact whereabouts were well known, and who they knew would not resist?

Why was Makao allowed no contact with the outside world and no legal advice? Alistair Carmichael, himself a lawyer, said correctly: "They have got to explain why they thought it was necessary to take this man from Shetland, hold him in prison and abdicate their responsibility every step of the way."

We hear a lot about "intelligence" these days in relation to the shooting of the innocent Brazilian man at a subway station and the alleged chemical bomb factory in London - just as we heard a lot about intelligence which showed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Yet Forrest Gump could have obtained all the necessary facts about Sakchai Makao inside two minutes. This was a publicity stunt engaged in by an agency of a rather desperate government whose popularity is in freefall - all in order to win favour with readers of the Sun. Is this what passes for political leadership in this country?

What they failed to reckon with was the community of Shetland. They assumed that islanders would be glad to see the back of a foreigner with a record. Well, they assumed wrongly - and, again, one phone call from one of their team of "intelligence" experts could have told them this. They utterly underestimated the generosity of the islanders and their understanding of Sakchai Makao's qualities. The locals felt that he had committed a foolish act forwhich he deserved to be sentenced; but they also recognised that, like some other young men who get into trouble, he had paid the price for his folly and was a valuable member of the community. Therefore they would fight for him.

In an island situation, people get to know each other and learn whom they can trust. I don't want to romanticise this and paint islands as some kind of sinless paradises. They are not. But there is still a sense of community, a sense of caring for people even in their human frailty. This is not a language which government apparatchiks even begin to understand. In whose interests would it have been to deport a man who has done his time and has got his life back in order - is this not what we are supposed to want prison to do? - and contributes to the public purse as well as to his local community?

What should be of concern is that while Sakchai Makao was supported by a well-organised and well-publicised community campaign, there are probably quite a number of people in cities whose sudden absence is barely noticed. We are living in an increasingly controlling society, at a time in which the language of politics is becoming truly Orwellian. Acts of defiance and decency like those produced by the Shetland community will not, of their own, change things; but they may provide one signpost pointing to a way out of the authoritarian morass into which we are inexorably descending.