WHILE many of our own psychiatric patients end up sleeping in cardboard boxes, I read that Britain's psychiatric hospitals are being swamped with foreign patients seeking free treatment.

Doctors estimate that at least 10 per cent of patients in London's psychiatric hospitals are from overseas.

While many of our own people cannot afford any sort of holiday, a dole cheat from Colombia, who has never done a day's work since arriving here seven years ago, kept on claiming benefits while taking a three-month holiday in Colombia and Trinidad.

She used a friend to sign on for her in London while she was abroad. While so many of our own people are unemployed I read of a London "sweatshop" where half the Turkish workers were also illegally claiming state benefits.

An Algerian, seeking political asylum in Britain, who beat up a doctor so badly he was unable work for seven months, was given 21 months in prison but, surprise surprise, no recommendation for deportation on release from prison.

I know we have many of our own who fiddle state benefits (our taxes) but does this mean we should allow so many from overseas to come here and do the same?

Of course we shouldn't. So now is the time to say enough is enough and for the law to be changed so that benefits cannot be paid to those who have not contributed.

B HARDWICK, Warner Street, Accrington.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.