I WAS appalled and dismayed at the short sentence passed on persistent offender Lee Finglass, who has caused so much misery for so many innocent people (LET, July 25).

I have been in correspondence lately with my MP in Blackpool about the things we have had to endure -- broken windows, cars set on fire, break-ins, damage to bowling greens, parks, library, shop windows, telephone boxes smashed night after night and statues in the cemetery 'beheaded.'

She sent me a copy of the new measures that the Home Secretary David Blunkett is shortly bringing in and I felt heartened that, once again, we elderly pensioners would be able to feel safe and secure.

But reading your article about Lee Finglass, I now feel nothing will change.

I can understand the frustration that the police must feel when magistrates and the Crown Prosecution Service allow offenders to make a laughing stock of the law.

JUNE PREISNER (Mrs), Mather Street, Blackpool.