I WAS horrified to read in the national press that S.Yorks police prevented neighbours with aluminium ladders from rescuing a woman screaming for help for her children with her at a window in a house fire.

What have we come to, that on Health and Safety grounds, the police can stop anyone from risking their own lives if they wish to rescue others in desperate danger?

I can see the police stopping someone from rushing through a flame-filled doorway, but up to a window with fireproof ladders? Could this happen here?

The fire service hadn’t arrived, time was when police/anyone would have been up the ladder to pull children out at the very least.

Understandably, the neighbours were furious at the police ‘leave them to die’ action. By the time the fire-engines arrived, it was too late for rescue.

The couple died (the wife was eight months pregnant), a child too, and another child is critically ill.

I am writing to the Home Secretary urging her to overrule the above nonsense and I urge others to do the same.

What next, police lining the beaches and rivers to prevent any life-saver going in?

MRS S CLAYTON, Southampton.