I APPLAUD The Northern Echo’s I’m backing Butterwick campaign (Echo, May 19). My late wife Frances, with terminal cancer, ended her life peacefully in a hospice.

The wrong-doing of one person should not condemn a whole organisation.

Too often a sensational newspaper headline or a single tweet, which may or may not be true, causes a tidal wave that can sweep away the innocent as well as the guilty.

The logic of the recent hostile reaction to Oxfam, for example, was to close down the whole organisation and thus deprive many suffering people of much-needed help, as well as causing innocent and dedicated workers to lose their jobs.

Of course wrong-doers should be brought to account and punished if found guilty, but I do wish the media and the public would take a balanced view instead of “tarring everyone with the same brush”.

Or, to quote another well-known saying, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.

Chris Foote Wood, Darlington.