Letters: Shoplifting is hardly a ‘low-level’ crime for long-suffering victims

SIR – I do not regard making shopkeepers’ lives hell and putting them out of business as “low-level” crime (“First-time criminals to avoid court”, report, August 2).

Alan Sabatini
Bournemouth, Dorset

SIR – Shoplifting (report, August 2) is the crime of theft and should be referred to as such. The word shoplifting suggests naughtiness – just a little crime.

Theft from shops affects us all – from increased prices to additional security measures in stores. The thieves can get away with it because the police seldom take action, thereby encouraging further criminal behaviour.

Bill Todd
Whitton, Middlesex

SIR – I served as a police officer from 1964 to 1994, rising through the ranks and retiring as a chief inspector.

In 1964, if I arrested a child or young person for an offence of theft, damage or assault, upon conviction they would be sent to a detention centre, where discipline was strict. Those regimes were properly supervised and the offenders learnt their lessons – with a significant number of them reformed. Swift and appropriate sentences worked then and would do so today.

If, having been to a detention centre, an individual committed another offence, on conviction they would be sent to a borstal, where the discipline was tougher. Again, many never reoffended, because if they did, prison was next.

Today’s problems arise because of the reluctance to prosecute young offenders after their first criminal act. They reoffend time and again, before finally being punished, by which time they have become recidivists and reform is virtually impossible. 

Weakness is never respected. 

Brian Roebuck
Alveston, Gloucestershire

SIR – No one goes to prison until every other sanction, including a caution, has been tried. Thus, generally speaking, we only jail reoffenders instead of giving them a short, sharp shock before they go down that road.

A short custodial sentence, isolated from other prisoners, coupled with a rigorous educational regime, might well have a better effect than effectively letting them off with a caution. 

I know from 30 years’ police experience that anything short of a custodial sentence is treated with derision by most offenders.

Bob Ferris
Banstead, Surrey

SIR – The Ministry of Justice’s draft code of practice – whereby first-time offenders could avoid court – fails to consider that these individuals may have been caught for the first time, but are almost certainly not first-time offenders. 

Frances Hobson
Sevenoaks, Kent
 

Charities in Ukraine

SIR – Charles Moore says the Charity Commission puts bureaucracy before Ukraine (Comment, August 1). As a village, we have been collecting for months for Alfs (the organisation referred to in the article), which takes 22 pallets of donated goods nearly every month to where they are most needed in Ukraine. 

It is insulting to the huge number of people who are helped in this way – and the helpers themselves – to know that the organisation cannot be given charitable status. What message does that send to all who donate money and goods, knit blankets and hold fund-raising events? War conditions should mean that different criteria are put in place to encourage the work of small, relevant charities that do so much to alleviate unimaginable deprivation. 

Juliet Morton
Kimpton, Hertfordshire

SIR – The Charity Commission is proud of the work of charities in response to the Ukraine conflict, and of its own work to support them. We witnessed and prioritised a surge of organisations looking either to register as charities or change the way they worked to meet the needs of affected Ukrainians. Our guidance provided trustees with the information they needed to determine what their organisation could do in response to the conflict. 

The Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Appeal alone raised more than £400 million, which is providing humanitarian assistance. This showed the scale of the public’s desire to help those in need, but we rightly discouraged inexperienced volunteers from leading convoys into a fast-evolving militarised situation. This echoed government advice against travel to the region. 

Charitable status in England and Wales is a trusted position in society. Every year we welcome around 4,000 new charities to the register, but our process is robust so that the public can have confidence in where donations are going. This is particularly important when scrutinising applications by those wanting to operate in a war zone, where support for military activity is implied, or where charitable purposes are unclear. 

Our balanced approach of supporting charities while maintaining a rigorous application process is vital for our charity sector to be able to respond to international humanitarian crises with the public’s support.

Dr Helen Stephenson 
Chief executive, Charity Commission of England and Wales
Bootle, Lancashire
 

Policing Welsh drivers

SIR – The Welsh government plans to use the fire service to stop and deal with motorists accused of minor breaches of the new nationwide 20mph speed limit (report, August 2). 

As a former police officer, I foresee problems. What next? Ambulance staff dealing with shoplifters, or refuse collectors looking after child welfare? Leave these often complex issues to motivated professionals who are experienced in applying the law. 

Gary Read 
Rhondda Valley, Glamorgan
 

Burial jacket

SIR – Nicholas Young (Letters, July 31) is considering being buried in his Savile Row suit. I have already made arrangements to be buried wearing my 1960s leather motorcycle rocker jacket, complete with pin badges, which I still wear occasionally. My wife has a full Regency ball gown hanging in the wardrobe, labelled and ready for the same use when the time comes.

John Snook
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
 

Children’s resilience

SIR – I agree with Jane Kelly (Letters, August 2) about children’s mental health. My son with learning difficulties was constantly asked if he was anxious – a word he’d never heard or used. It became such a problem that I had to request that people stop asking him how he was. The suggestion that there must be something wrong was putting a negative thought in his head that didn’t exist previously. 

It’s a shame that more isn’t done to promote resilience and positivity. It won’t help everyone but it would certainly be beneficial to some.

A J Hall
Coalville, Leicestershire
 

Remarkable Gullick

SIR – Tom Gullick (Obituaries, July 31) ) was a truly remarkable man. 

His knowledge of all aspects of nature, but especially birds, was exemplary. It is worth noting that since he set the world record as the first person to spot 9,000 species, a number of species have been sub-divided, making it marginally easier for aspirants to find more birds.

Shooting wild partridges on Tom’s land in La Mancha was a unique experience. I was privileged to travel with him to Africa, South America, Antarctica and all over the Iberian peninsula. The hyacinth macaw expedition involved flying over jungle in a rusty Cessna with only half the instruments working. Once, we were held at gunpoint in a remote area of Bolivia. “I’m not worried,” he said. “As long as they aim at me, they are such bad shots they will hit you.”

Tom Cook
Dereham, Norfolk
 

Winds of time

SIR – There is a church tower clock at Shandon in Cork city. It has four faces, each showing a slightly different time (Letters, August 1), for which we blame the wind moving the hands. Locally, it is known as the Four Liars.

Neil Ramsay
Bandon, Co Cork, Ireland

SIR – On my late husband’s first visit to Ireland, we found ourselves in a bar in Macroom, Co Cork. At 11pm, he leant over to speak to the barmaid with all his charm and persuasion: “I know it is 11pm, but please, do you think we could just have one more drink?” The barmaid looked at him and said: “God love you, sir, we don’t do hours here.” 

We enjoyed ourselves until the early morning.

Mary J Swaine 
Barnoldswick, Lancashire
 

Why consumers are missing out on tasty apples

SIR – Flavour, texture and history are the components that travel with an apple (“Sweet spot for heritage apples after pre-war trees bear fruit”, report, August 1). I commend the Blenheim Orange: a late-ripening fruit, which has a firm flavour, a good crunch in the bite, and is attractive to view and handle. It was first catalogued in 1818. 

Another, the Tom Putt – juicy with a subtle sweetness – was at one time a preferred cider apple. A chunky colourful round with a pinched top, it was developed by the Rev Tom Putt from his parish at Trent in Dorset around 1770.

While farm shops and some fruit shops offer alternatives, volume is necessary for the supermarket shelf and thus the public do not get to sample the great favourites of old.

James Bishop
Wincanton, Somerset
 

Britain’s part in the birth of the atomic bomb

SIR – Alexander Larman’s review, “The truth about Trinity: how accurate is Oppenheimer?” (telegraph.co.uk, July 31) omits a glaring issue. Viewers of the film will gain the impression that the sole British contribution to the bomb was to send a spy named Klaus Fuchs to Los Alamos to assemble lumps of explosive and create an implosion.

The “Einstein-Szilard letter” to Roosevelt originated in August 1939. It predicted an atomic bomb and was drafted principally by Leo Szilard, who visualised a chain reaction. But Szilard predicted a bomb that would be so massive that it could only be delivered by a ship. The Americans therefore initially downplayed its strategic importance regarding the Second World War.

It was a British discovery in March 1940 (by Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls in a basement at Birmingham University) that it should be possible to produce a pineapple-sized core that meant delivery by an aircraft became viable. The downside was that Peierls recruited Klaus Fuchs to assist him as the pressure to deliver real designs grew. Early on, Fuchs volunteered to become a Russian spy.

Eventually Churchill, unable to fund atomic development work and fearing invasion, handed our work to the Americans. But he also bequeathed them Fuchs, who was immensely knowledgeable. Fuchs was then sent to Los Alamos, where he learnt not just of the uranium and plutonium atomic fission designs (led by Oppenheimer), but also of ideas for a hydrogen “super” (fusion) bomb (led by Edward Teller). To cap it all, shortly before his arrest in Britain in 1950, Fuchs was consulted by William Penney, who was leading the British H-bomb project at Fort Halstead in Kent.

The full, remarkable tale is contained in the 2019 book Trinity by Professor Frank Close.

Dr Tony Parker
Ringmer, East Sussex
 

Letters to the Editor

We accept letters by email and post. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.  
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT   
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk   
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk 
NEWSLETTER: sign up to receive the award-winning Telegraph Conversations here