DURHAM City Council describes the city's Gala Theatre as a spectacular regional source. Nobody is denying that.

It seems to me that the city council wants to move on from the turmoil of recent months. Moving on means burying the past.

In a statement from Durham City Council, two sets of company searches were carried out through two separate specialist London firms.

The Northern Echo seems to have found out more about Michael Power than Durham City Council.

Durham City Council will be taking legal action to recover the £75,000 loan. In my own mind it won't get a penny back, and who will fund the money for the legal action? Yes, you have guessed it, the ratepayer/taxpayer of Durham City.

Why were 350 of the 500 seats at the opening event said to have been given to councillors and other officials? They should have been sold to the paying public. If this is true, the councillors and officials should pay it back into the city council funds.

Durham City Council can reassure local people that there will be no knock-on effect from this year's invoices to next year's council tax bills. Does that mean no rise in council tax year 2003? That would be nice.

Still, there are a lot of questions to be answered over the debts and the interest-free loan of £75,000. - DT Murray, Coxhoe, Durham.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

VERA Baird MP is chairing an inquiry into the treatment of women in the criminal justice system (Echo, June 26).

Surely the same parliamentary weight should be put behind the treatment of some men? Few people within the criminal justice system understand the vulnerability of men to vindictive women. I read of many cases of women lying in court to try and secure a conviction.

It is right and proper that victims of real crime are treated reasonably, fairly and with compassion. It is also right that perpetrators of such crimes are dealt with appropriately but nothing is done for the other victims - those men, and sometimes women, who are convicted as a result of prosecution witnesses lying in court.

Perhaps Vera Baird should consider those victims. - Name and address withheld.

ELDERLY CARE

THE argument over how much of an elderly person's nursing care should be funded should be unnecessary (Echo, July 2).

Scotland has got it right. All long-term care should be free, funded and provided by the NHS. Care is care and cannot be divided into packages; we'll pay for this, but you must pay for that.

The anxiety and distress caused by the present regulations should never be forced upon our elderly relatives. Throw away the books of petty rules and regulations and let's have our old folks cared for properly. Give them the dignity and love they deserve in their final years. - EA Moralee, Billingham.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH

THE leader writer (Echo, June 29) is wrong to speak of compassion in the case of Bobby Waugh.

Waugh had already been in trouble with the authorities and was even evicted from a farm for bad practices, so why was he allowed to carry on?

The foot-and-mouth crisis was an insult and cost the taxpayer a fortune. The whole issue has been one big cover-up that proves the kind of corrupt and greedy society we are becoming.

The suffering and cruelty Bobby Waugh was inflicting was inexcusable. As for society as a whole, we should be ashamed. We have allowed an establishment off the hook once again and an industry to be seen as above reproach.

As for the suggestion concerning the three-month tagging, it has been suggested he does not go out. So the tagging is more of a gimmick than a punishment.

The fact he can keep his compensation is rubbing salt into the wound, especially when the taxpayer will be paying most of the cost.

The foot-and-mouth crisis and the prosecution of Bobby Waugh is an issue of such importance that every citizen in this country should be asking the question why? - John Young, Crook.

'COWARDS' GARDEN'

THERE was still an opportunity during the First World War for men with religious beliefs or objections to war to do their bit (Echo, June 26).

My grandfather, a Shildon man married with three children, was a lay preacher and pacifist. At the start of the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served in France in some of the worst battles the world has seen, until the war finished four years later.

When the men went over the top with guns blazing, my grandfather took his first aid kit. And, when he went out at night in search of wounded men, during lulls in the fighting, he would be true to his Christian beliefs and tend to both British and German wounded soldiers.

My father, who walked from Shildon to Darlington to join up, fought in the Second World War with the 1st Army and 1st Airborne from 1939-1946. Judged from his own experience, he said that his father was probably the bravest man he had ever known.

A pacifist he was, and proud of it. A coward he was not. - Barry M Cox, Bishop Auckland.