TIME after time recently I’ve read of serious cases where the guilty party has been given a suspended sentence or let off completely. Is it just that our law courts are afraid of the human rights lawyers – or are there some new Government guidelines that we don’t know about?

We also read of the wonderful conditions within the prison walls, more a five-star hotel than a place of punishment. I always assumed that prisons were places of pain, misery and death.

Unfortunately, I am wrong!

So when one starts to really think about this problem and what persons are really like, perhaps the Government and the courts are on the right track after all, by not sending these people to prison is a severe punishment in itself – five square meals a day, warm comfortable cells, TV, a gym and it doesn’t cost them a penny – no wonder all they want is to be “sent down”. They have never had it so good!

Mrs D Harrison, Darlington.