Most people who deal with victims of crime recognise that burglary is among the most traumatic of offences. Many burglary victims never get over having their homes violated.

Left with a permanent feeling of unease, they become less willing to go out, for fear of what might face them on their return.

Sad people. Pathetic people. For we now have it on the highest authority that burglary is a petty offence. Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, says so. He is issuing new guidelines which will urge magistrates to impose community sentences rather than custody for first-time (or rather first-conviction) burglars, along with what he considers other petty offenders, such as people who drive while disqualified or commit theft.

Does Lord Woolf live in the real world? Tragedies caused by the misuse of cars - joyriding, reckless driving etc - occur daily. Driving while disqualified is very often an element. Replacing the custody sentence that is now the starting point for this crime with a community order seems likely only to encourage more irresponsible drivers to flout the law.

But it is the proposed leniency to burglars that stirs the strongest disbelief. As everyone knows the clear-up rates for burglary are dismally low. And if that is one clear inducement to any would-be burglar, the knowledge that, if caught, the most severe punishment will be a community order is bound to be another. Lord Woolf proposes a burglars' charter.

My late mother was a magistrate. And while it would have been more than my life was worth to offer advice to HER, I have no hesitation in suggesting a fitting response to the new "guidelines" by Britain's present 30,000 magistrates: two fingers up to the Lord Chief Justice.

CHANGES at the top of One NorthEast, the regional development agency, open an illuminating window on to its corporate structure. It seems well blessed with executive directors.

Beneath the chief executive there's a director of operations, a director of strategy and development, a director of corporate resources, a director of delivery, a director of communications and a director of strategy for success.

Shouldn't "success" be the product of the efforts of the other directors rather than requiring its own man or woman? Anyway, let's hope the two strategy directors don't fall over each other. And let us reflect that whatever cash is needed to fund this superabundance of directors will be small change if the proposed regional assembly gets under way.

INQUESTS into the deaths of Diana and Dodi will go ahead, insists the coroner who would conduct them. Like a bet? The Government is poised to remove the current obligation to hold inquests on British subjects who die abroad. Of course, the change is unconnected with the contentious Diana and Dodi deaths. But the smart money will be on it to beat the best intentions of the Surrey coroner.

A STUDY of bagpipe playing links it to a range of health hazards - not only deafness but repetitive strain injury, a distended stomach and, as the hobby takes over, alcoholism. I am reminded of Denis Nordern's wonderful reply to the question: "What is your favourite musical sound?''. "Bagpipes receding.''