What on earth is happening to this country? A young man goes to the defence of a senior citizen (LT, June 12), is injured for his trouble, yet gets a nine-month jail sentence when he apprehends a person he thought was one of the perpe-trators and threatens him.

My elderly mother-in-law was mugged several years ago and if my husband had caught the thug, I can assure you he would have lived to regret it.

Convicts all too often forget the victims of these crimes which leave many old people afraid to leave their homes.

So why punish a brave young man for taking the law into his own hands, when we are so often failed by the justice system?

ELLEN ASHCROFT, Patterdale Avenue, Blackburn.