TONY MARTIN: LIKE many others I felt some sympathy for Tony Martin until that interview on television. Here was a man not cowed by prison life but one who looked younger and fitter than before - only his attitude to life remained the same. So cold, callous, not a trace of remorse or regret for taking a young life. No sympathy for his own aged mother, no apologies for the hurt he caused her.

It's not surprising to hear that he felt nothing at all for the family of young Fred.

Prison is meant to teach a hard lesson, teach the error of one's ways. It has done little for Tony Martin. - Mary Burnside, Darlington.

YOUR editorial roundly condemns Tony Martin for taking the law into his own hands but admits he was repeatedly let down by the appropriate law enforcement agencies (Echo, July 29).

So what alternative does the writer recommend Tony Martin should have followed? To meekly await his fate? To hell with that!

Given the utter dereliction of duty of the police and law courts, Tony Martin had no alternative - nor have any of us - but to protect himself as best he could. Indeed it was his duty and responsibility to do so, and I commend him for it. - T Kelly, Crook.

WATCHING a TV programme this week showing the sickening consequences of taking the law into your own hands, I could not be alone in having total empathy for the victims. These decent, normally law-abiding people became victims of crime twice: firstly by miscreants who burgled them, and secondly by our legal system, which absurdly allows convicted criminals to sue for many thousands of pounds, money never seen by many decent hard-working people.

It is high time Home Secretary David Blunkett filled this gap in the law, which, I for one, think is deplorable. Criminals, either first offence or career criminals, should lose all rights to sue once they trespass on land, buildings or property intent on stealing and causing misery.

If by chance they meet a frightened decent householder and lose out in the confrontation, so be it. Ultimately it may save us all a fortune.

Victims of crime, it appears, have no rights. They lose out to thugs and lose out to our ridiculous legal system which vehemently pursues them, while giving cash rewards to delinquents because they were wronged. One word, pathetic. - Robert Bridgett, Shildon.

DARLINGTON TAXIS

I CANNOT understand the logic of taxi drivers in Darlington in resisting the required regulations. Neither can I agree that increased bureaucracy is the reason for the closure of the Abbacab firm (Echo, July 29).

When running a business, and I have been doing that in Darlington for 33 years, it is important to do it properly and comply with all requirements. It is particularly important in this case because taxis take charge of their customers' lives.

Of all the drivers on the road in Darlington, taxi drivers are the most frequent ones to break the rules. They often break the speed limit, change from lane to lane without signalling, etc...

This morning a taxi pulled onto the roundabout at the Stone Bridge and stopped another car, already on the roundabout, completely. If the other car had not stopped, there would have been an accident.

So why do the taxi drivers resist taking the Driving Standards Agency tests? Enormous amounts of money and energy are being put into our local community to reduce the number of accidents. Wouldn't we all feel much safer if the taxi drivers co-operated with, and supported, the work of the council, police and the NHS on this issue?

Other businesses have to build the necessary costs into their business budgets - why can't taxi drivers?

It is time that we heard the taxi drivers wanting to ensure the absolutely maximum safety for their passengers and the people of Darlington. - Name supplied, Darlington.

SMALL CHANGE

SUE Heath in her article "Queuing for a Home" (Echo, July 28) at Catterick Garrison, curses the pensioners proffering small change when supermarket shopping. We pensioners equally curse Sue Heath and her ilk proffering cash cards. Transactions of the latter take two or three times longer than those of cash customers. - P Savage, Northallerton.

LITTER

THE Northern Echo had a good story about Councillor Joe Armstrong of Durham County Council and the major retailers in Durham City backing a campaign on carrier bag waste (Echo, Aug 1).

I would like to see the same thing happening in Washington. Two years ago I stayed with a German family close to Stuttgart as part of a town twinning arrangement in County Durham, and they do not have the same problem with litter. Firstly, they have more civic pride and, secondly, there's a deposit system operated on glass bottles.

With the growing number of takeaways in Washington, the litter would be much worse without the council's "clean team" doing an almost seven-day a week job.

In Ray Mallon's column recently, the Middlesbrough mayor had a quote worth repeating: "In the past 30 years, people's behaviour has changed fundamentally. There's more disrespect for society and the street. It's not the council that makes the street dirty." How right he is. - Councillor Bill Craddock, Washington.