IF A KEY point of the battle to clean up the environment is frightening the polluters by making them really pay, is not the whole effort wasted if offenders are only made to pay a slap-on-the-wrist pittance?

So asks the North West boss of the Environment Agency today as he reveals that the courts are undoing the improvement drive by imposing fines that amount to small change to many of the companies found guilty of polluting.

It is not just that, as the agency's regional manager says, this sends completely the wrong message to board rooms, but also that often the fines nowhere near reflect the seriousness the pollution caused, the damage done to the environment or the ability of the firms to pay.

Their worships should pay heed. And the government should underline this shortcoming with guidance to the courts on fitting and effective fines for polluters.

For the punishment should always fit the crime. And if it does not, then the courts are failing in their duty with this misplaced leniency to the firms fouling our environment.

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