One of the biggest challenges facing any newspaper is knowing when not to turn off readers with a disturbing front page and when it is arguably unavoidable in the public interest.

My thoughts are prompted by Martine Self, from Hove, who says she has noticed recent "disturbing and frightening front pages in gory, graphic detail". She is almost certainly referring to our front page last Monday when we published pictures of the bloodied face of a gay attack victim, Ricardo Saroyan-James, and the previous Friday's Night Final edition, showing the battered and bruised face of another attack victim, Mark Walker.

Quite understandably, Martine says: "I realise life is not a picnic but do we have to have it forced down ours and our children's throats? I've actually had to hide The Argus or throw away the front page in order to protect my children from seeing these images."

There is no right answer, of course, but we felt because the police were so anxious to trace the perpetrators of these horrifying crimes that the best way to do this was to try to shock them into feeling guilty.

This applied particularly to the attack on Mr Saroyan-James, who was beaten up simply for being gay. We had quite a lot of letters condemning such a disturbing development in Brighton as a result of our coverage.

Nevertheless, we take no pleasure in publicising these types of violent crime and hope we are not called upon again to do so - for the sake of victims and the proper sensitivities of people like Martine.

The Reverend Stephen Terry, of the Aldrington Team Ministry in Hove, is anxious to point out that Conservative councillor Jenny Langston was not the only politician to attend the Merchant Navy Remembrance Service at St Philip's Church, Hove, as we reported. In fact, there were official representatives from Adur and Brighton and Hove Councils. Councillor Langston and husband Steve attended as private individuals, but, says Mr Terry, were nonetheless very welcome.

We stay with the Church and our report on the release from prison of paedophile priest Father Michael Hill in last Thursday's paper, in which we stated he had been defrocked.

D Com, from the University of Sussex, says we should have written "unfrocked". He or she is right, according to the church spokesman I rang for guidance.

However, the New Oxford Dictionary agrees with us, saying that defrocked is derived from the early 17th Century French defroquer, from de, (expressing removal) and froc (frock). I would also argue defrocked is in common usage. Does any reader know better?

A picture accompanying our report on proposed tighter restrictions on smoking in pubs in last Wednesday's Night Final edition showed staff inside the Stanley Arms, in Wolseley Road, Portslade.

Owner and licensee Pat Bond complains this was unfair since he takes customers' risk from passive smoking very seriously. Hence, there are ceiling extractors in both bars, a no-smoking area and window fans. My apologies to Pat and the pub, which is a multi-award winner.

Finally, thanks to PJ Smith, of Crawley, who spotted our picture report of the Haywards Heath Horticultural Society's autumn show in last Wednesday's paper appeared to describe the flowers in the picture as dahlias. There were some of these on display at the show but the pictured flowers were chrysanthemums.