MY wife, who is a publican, works 16 to 18 hours per day. I put in a similar number of hours to earn an honest living.

However, our lives are being made intolerable by both sides of the law.

The police have destroyed our teatime trade with their random breath testing. There can be no other word for it, considering the fraction of one per cent of those tested who were over the limit.

On the other side of the law, we have burglars entering our premises and stealing our hard-earned cash and personal belongings.

It is said that crime does not pay. Unfortunately, crime such as robbery, burglary, etc does pay the scum who steal from us.

However, unlike motoring offences, where revenue in the form of fines is fed back into the judicial system, to solve a real crime costs the police force money.

Hence, the lack of action by the police to try and bring the criminals to justice.

I have totally lost faith in the police and I am disgusted that the Home Office is more concerned with lowering the drink-drive limit - obviously a move designed to bring in even more revenue - than doing something to tackle the real crimes taking place every second of the day and night in this country.

T DEWSE, Duke of York, Johnson New Road, Waterside, Darwen.

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