Hate Mail

I found this comment, sent in by a reader, on the Daily Mail website:-

......... I think there are more serious issues to consider, such as why the magistracy and judisciary (sic) of this country hand such appallingly lenient sentences to those who choose to interfere with children well under the age of puberty. This surely can't be right and I am no great fan of the video mobile phone myself. I think it is an invasion of privacy and is an inadvertent version of Big Brother. But until the magistracy and judisciary (sic) of this country is overhauled, the paedophile will continue to be given the now-seemingly acceptable few weeks or months in prison and be allowed to work with children through jobs as janitors and what have you.

- Jamal Osei-Bonsu, Watford, England, UK

Well, Jamal, where to start, eh? Leaving aside your linking of lenient sentencing to video-mobile phones and inadvertent (huh?) versions of Big Brother, the kind of sentence you are worried about doesn't happen, and convicted paedophiles are not given jobs as (presumably) school janitors. But nothing anyone says is going to change your mind is it?

It's the same with speed cameras. I am pretty sure that a majority of people believe the falsehood that they are all about raising revenue, a canard that is assiduously encouraged by the pro-speed lobby. No amount of factual argument will shift that particular idea.

"A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on."