Sussex police destroyed 100 computers seized during operation Ore (The Argus, July 15).

I am disgusted at the waste of materials being committed here. Anyone with even the most basic computer knowledge can tell you that any data that is downloaded onto a PC will go onto the hard disk drive.

All you need to do to remove any offending material on the PC is to disconnect and destroy the hard drive, a job of perhaps two or three minutes with a screwdriver and a sledgehammer.

The rest of the computer is completely usable and, perhaps more importantly, completely legal.

Motherboard, memory, power supply unit, fans and any CD or DVD drives can either be sold together still in the case or dismantled and auctioned off piece by piece.

Schools or charities could have received these units and saved thousands of pounds.

Unless, that is, you have an irrational fear that as the computer downloaded child porn it must be "evil".

The computer has no feeling as to what it has been used for, so neither should we.

I find it disturbing that the computer experts who find child pornography on offender's computers don't know how to remove it without resorting to brute force and ignorance.

-Russ White, Southwick