IF there was ever a pair of rats who deserve being thrown in a cell and the key promptly lost it is, surely, the evil Oxfordshire millionaire farmers Joan Taylor and her son, Adrian.

They stole the £22,000 lifesavings of frail, half-blind 80-year-old farmhand Les Bawden who had worked for 55 years for £5 a week.

Slow and simple old Les, who had been brought out of an orphanage aged 14 to work on the farm, was happy with the arrangement - as his old boss, Mrs Taylor's father, had salted away the rest of his earnings in a savings account.

But when she and her son took control of the farm after the retirement of her brother, who ran it after their father died and continued Les's saving scheme, they plundered his nest-egg.

They drew his old age pension and even moved him out of the farmhouse into a freezing caravan that was so cold the old fellow, still working a 10-hour day, had to line it with newspapers to try and keep warm.

Now justice has supposedly been done with the evil Taylors being made to pay old Les £50,000 damages and liable for costs in the region of £120,000. But mark this - these rats are only the losers in a civil case, one which Mrs Taylor's kindly brother, Robert Hillier, helped old Les pursue.

The reason they are not facing criminal charges is that simple old Les only wanted some money for his old age and was not interested in prosecuting the Taylors who fleeced and exploited him so dreadfully.

Lucky for them.

But what of our Crown Prosecution Service?

Why have they not gone after this cruel and greedy pair?

They may be deservedly out of pocket and quite rightly reaping the scorn of the community after this case, but should they not also be in the dock accused of grand larceny and cruelty - and looking at years inside for all that they made trusty old Les suffer?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.