From Canon David Peel
Sir, - You report the comments made by
Canon David Crooks after a vicious attack on a post-office
assistant (
News, 20 July).
If Canon Crooks thinks of the
perpetrators as "vermin", he is dehumanising them, and thereby
surrendering the right to judge their actions and to propose a
punishment suited to the circumstances: we do not make moral
judgements about the actions of mice and rats.
Worse, he seems to have forgotten the
first two words of the Lord's Prayer: there is no "they" who commit
crimes, however awful, only some of us.
DAVID PEEL
116 Grey Street, North Shields NE30 2EG