EVERY so often our legal system is made to look ridiculous by a prosecution which is just plain absurd.

The conviction and jailing of Chorley golf ball diver John Collinson following all the time, trouble and paperwork of a crown court trial is a classic example of wasted resources.

John, known by his middle name of Mark, spent nine days locked up in a Leicester jail when he was sentenced to six months in prison after being found guilty of theft and going equipped for theft.

He was arrested on a Leicester golf course with his business partner in possession of 1,158 golf balls which he had been diving for in the course's lakes.

For six year he has been earning his living this way and filling in tax returns twice a a year with "golf ball retriever" listed as his occupation.

Not surprisingly a national outcry erupted over the sentence and Mark received support from celebrity golfers like Bruce Forsyth and Jimmy Tarbuck.

The Leicester golf club said it had declined to press charges but police and the Crown Prosecution Service had the scent of a conviction and charged ahead regardless.

Today Mark is free after the Court of Appeal described the sentence as "disproportionate" and substituted it with a two-year conditional discharge.

Mark now plans to appeal against a conviction which gives him a criminal record for taking property that he maintains had been abandoned. The events of the last few weeks must have caused real anguish to Mark, his wife and children.

Chorley MP Lindsay Hoyle, who has written to the Home Secretary demanding a review of the law, sums up the situation thus: "It was absurd that he should be imprisoned for recovering lost property, especially. . .when violence and street crime are escalating."

For all the everyday victims of violence, vandalism and other REAL crime, this action wasn't just absurd - it was an outrageous insult.