13/05/03

Who came up with the nonsense that only reasonable force can be used to defend yourself, your family and property?

I pose the question. Considering there were two thugs involved in the incident, who can tell what the eventual outcome would have been if Tony Martin had not defended himself?

We hear about many incidents of people being tortured during robberies. Are you supposed to hope for the best or are you going to defend yourself immediately?

It is amazing how many deskbound heroes we have who are always on the side of the criminal, be it against the police, who should have known it was an imitation gun, or law-abiding people defending themselves.

I could understand it coming from the money-grabbing legal vultures, but not from a normally sensible newspaper.

Criminals are not invited to burgle your premises and, yes, they do forfeit their rights when they commit crimes. If Mr Martin was to follow the example of most criminals, and cynically admit remorse, then he would be free, and what is wrong with saying he would defend himself again? If criminals leave him alone there will be no problem.

With the kind of comments you made is it any wonder that again today we have a 104-year-old man being robbed of his savings? Why not, the thugs know they will get off lightly if they express remorse? - C Ward, Spennymoor.

YOU pose the question (Echo, May 9): "Do the supporters of Tony Martin value property more than a life?"

The truth is that many burglaries are not just crimes against property but have a severe effect on the victim as your columns often testify. Tony Martin was a very frightened man who was not getting the protection he believed he needed. The burglars were not casual offenders but, I believe, potential career criminals.

What Mr Martin did was wrong in every sense, but to deny him parole will make him into a martyr and reinforce the views of those who believe that our justice system is too heavily weighted in favour of the criminal. - Peter W Elliott, Eaglescliffe.

SMALL BUSINESSES

THE small business community is growing big jobs. At the beginning of this year the TUC, curiously, questioned the importance of small firms to the UK economy.

In the North-East the small business sector, as in other areas of the country, is creating most of new jobs. A report published last week exposes the holes in the unwarranted attack by the trade union leaders on Britain's 3.7 million small businesses.

The report, by Trends Business Research, shows that small businesses make a huge contribution by creating over twice the number of jobs compared to big business.

There are depressingly too many examples of large corporate employers making large redundancies - or should I say 'downsizing'.

The burden of the cumulative effect of legislation is increasing despite the pledges from successive governments. Perhaps politicians both nationally and in the North-East should remember that the mass of regulations, 80 per cent of which originate from the EU Commission in Brussels, have a negative effect on small enterprises, which stifles their growth.

The solution to the long-term unemployment problem in the North-East is really quite simple; encourage small business growth. Remove the barriers created by the ever-increasing volume of regulations. - Peter Troy, Chairman, Darlington Branch, Federation of Small Businesses.

IRAQ

A NUMBER of recent letters hold that the invasion of Iraq was a Christian act. Yet not so long ago the Pope made a series of public apologies for the atrocities committed by previous Popes who, like so many people today, invoke the divine is an excuse to justify acts of greed, power, bigotry or to hide the fact that many of these deemed as evil are the result of acts of evil which our forefathers committed in the name of God.

The Saddam regime was evil, but no more evil that any other which the West continues to support.

Equally, when one looks at the way in which America has handled the invasion of protecting the oil fields whilst leaving musuems and hospitals to be looted, by restoring oil pipes instead of water and sewage pipes, by giving the reconstruction of Iraq and control of its oil fields to those companies directly connected to the Bush administration this is not an invasion driven by any Christian morals, but one driven by revenge and greed.

So please do Christianity a religion a favour and leave God out of Iraq. - CT Riley, Spennymoor.

THE relationship between the US and the United Nations needs to be repaired. It seems that the US intends to have the international community on board with its plans for Iraq.

It also seems that because it won the war it thinks that it should lay down the ground rules. They offer the UN some input but no more than a supporting role.

The only explanation is the belief by the US administration that it won the war so quickly and with so little loss of life to its armed forces that it has a new leverage in world affairs. It has the support of Britain.

The US wants it to be recognised everywhere that its foreign policy objectives take precedence in world affairs. Apparently our Government sees a convergence between British foreign policy objectives and theirs. This was the conclusion of the 1998 White Paper on Defence.

I question whether this approach is one that will lead to a peaceful world, and one where the people of the world will unite to prevent poverty, damage to the environment and the ecosystem, terrible epidemics and terrorism. - Geoffrey Bulmer, Billingham.