Government policy on criminal justice in this country is little more than a sick joke, what with Home Secretary David Blunkett making new edicts monthly and after a few days consigning them to the waste-paper basket once the legal profession has studied them.

Lords Woolf and Irvine also got into the act, suggesting burglary is not important enough to warrant prison sentences.

This was then denied a couple of days later by the Prime Minister on one of his brief visits here from minding other people's business worldwide.

Two policemen have been killed in this country in the past few weeks, one of whom, Ged Walker, and his family I know personally.

I hope the persons who perpetrated these crimes will be imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives but, unfortunately, I doubt this will happen once the lawyers have played their part in the name of justice.

Two years ago, I had a similar experience, when my daughter was killed by her husband.

Because this was a "domestic", the charge was reduced to manslaughter with diminished responsibility and he was sentenced to six years.

He will serve three years of that six and then be released on licence in March 2004. I wrote twice to the Prime Minister regarding this sentence.

He did not bother to reply to either letter. So much for Tony Blair's criminal justice system when punishment for this type of crime is decided in a back room between the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts for the sole purpose of containing the prison population.

As for the victims of crime, they have no rights whatsoever in our society.

-G W Bennett, Roderick Avenue, Peacehaven