Hooray for John Parry with "Justice for victims" (The Argus, June 21). New Labour, mired in sleaze, smear and spin, should heed him and hope to redeem its sorry spectacle.

For almost 40 years, there have been "new initiatives" by our governments on law and order. The result is always ease for the criminals and hardship for the innocent. Higher sentences mean lower sentences, for instance. Life imprisonment should mean just that and, if not, we should be told so.

Recently, locally, a homeowner was warned by police he must not carry a baseball bat for defence when confronting yobs who repeatedly broke down his garden wall. Can the police themselves catch these thugs? Guess.

Will the authorities, do-gooders and trendies ever realise that the more the public are disarmed and made defenceless, the more the criminals stock up with guns and knives? There is gun and knife crime every day.

Jailing Tony Martin for defending himself and his property is an insult to every Englishman. On his release (probably to be under great secrecy), he should be hailed a hero.

Away with weasel words such as "They are under-age and we cannot touch them". Change the law so they are no longer under-age. This is my own idea and Tony Blair must not try to muscle in on it. Nor need Mrs Blair say anything about it.

As Mr Parry says, juries should know what a defendant has already done against the law before they waste their own time in trying him. Also, the present law of double jeopardy must go. It only needs one batty judge to find something technically wrong with a piece of evidence for a vicious, guilty criminal to go free for life.

I hand over to the do-gooders and trendies.

-Richard Halfpenny, New Road, Rustington