IT was quite shocking to read the story of a woman who was terrified by a previous boyfriend who made a series of chilling telephone calls causing her and her family to move home (report February 6).
A notable feature of the case was that the perpetrator had no fewer than eleven previous convictions and yet had never been in prison until being remanded in this instance.
This shows that public safety is being compromised because people are out on the streets when they should be serving a prison sentence.
It was recently reported nationally that two rapes a week and one unlawful killing are committed by people on bail.
In addition 20 per cent of all burglaries are also committed by people on bail.
The lesson which our broken down justice system should draw from this (but probably won’t) is that more persistent offenders must be sent to prison and fewer persistent offenders should be bailed to commit more crimes.
CLLR NEVILLE PENMAN (Conservative), Totton.
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