IF H Hamer (LT May 27) wants to save taxpayers’ money, let’s go back to the Dark Ages: scrap prisons and amputate hands, flog and hang.

That is very cost- effective.

Why not go further and make stealing a loaf a capital offence?

It’s wrong to kill so now we are going to kill you.

Justice? Maybe (although not for Evans and Bentley).

Hypocrisy? Certainly.

Do we really want a killer to turn us into killers? Not in the heat of the moment or in a blind panic or a boiling rage, but coldly, where the ‘victim’ has no means of defence.

Are we to be decivilised to save money?

DNA could get an ‘innocent’ hung – we are fallible, not God.

D Pratt (Mr), Accrington.