OF all the issues which generate letters to The Northern Echo, law and order inspires perhaps the strongest public reaction.

It was also the issue at the centre of a conference in Darlington last Friday when a public consultation exercise was launched by the Home Office to examine sentencing in the courts.

Among the speakers was Darlington mother Pat Gibson who told an audience of delegates how she had lost her young son, Michael, eight years ago in the most appallingly tragic circumstances.

Michael was the victim of an unprovoked attack in High Row and lay in a coma for nearly 17 months before he died. Unbelievably, his attacker was sentenced to only two years in jail because he could not be charged with anything more serious than grievous bodily harm.

That was because of an ancient and outdated law known as the "year and a day rule" which decreed that attackers escaped a manslaughter or murder charge if their victims stayed alive for a year and a day.

Pat Gibson, backed by thousands of readers of The Northern Echo in an extraordinary show of public support, changed that law.

She shouted until the politicians had no choice but to listen to the injustice that shamed our town and country.

It seems a long time ago, but the revised legal system is now producing cases which underline the value of Pat's campaign. Attackers, whose victims have survived on life support machines longer than a year and a day, no longer escape justice.

Pat's story has been told many times before in The Northern Echo but it is worth repeating at a time when the Government wants to review the effectiveness of the sentencing of criminals in this country.

If one woman's courage can change an aspect of the law, anything is possible . . .

* ON the same day that the representatives of various organisations were debating law and order in Darlington, two stories appeared on the front page of The Northern Echo.

One reported on the controversy surrounding a senior Cleveland Police officer who was let off a speeding fine because he could not remember whether he was driving.

Another highlighted the case of a paedophile who had received legal aid to sue Durham Police and the probation service after he was forced to move twice.

There are times when it is easy to believe that the world is going mad.