IN reply to Stan Melling (LT July 9), whilst I do not condone the actions of train robber Ronnie Biggs, I do despair that an eighty-year-old man, in very bad health, is being made an example of.

I find it pathetic that an old man who causes no threat to the general public is taking up a precious prison cell at a time when judges are reluctant to send dangerous criminals to jail because of the lack of prison spaces.

I suppose that Jack Straw can boast that he is being ;tough on crime’. However, I am sure that I am not the only person who believes that more deserving criminals should get Biggs’s bed.

I refer the readers to the recent case of arson and the sickening murder of four horses in Darwen where the perpetrator unbelievably escaped a custodial sentence.

Gary Ward (via email).