Sir, Last week the Lord Chancellor announced a review of murder laws to clarify when a killing should be treated as manslaughter rather than murder. That announcement followed the conviction for manslaughter of a father who had killed his terminally ill son.

On Thursday you reported that a gang of youths who kicked David Morley to death during one of their “regular rampages of violence” were convicted of manslaughter. During that terrible assault the victim was apparently kicked in the head as if his head it were a football.

Assaults to the head in similarly appalling fashions are becoming an increasingly worrying issue. Whatever societal factors are causing perpetrators to act in this manner are deeply disturbing. Police are working hard to deter, catch and convict such offenders, but the severity of the crime is now not being matched by the deterrence of the sentence. There is a further debate to be had on the reality of the actual sentence as well.

Such assaults cause significant injury, which often occurs over time. Proving motive for murder is extremely difficult, and in any review it is crucial that the recklessness of the act of assault is given far more prominence within the judicial system, including when drunkenness is used in proceedings to mitigate the intent of the perpetrator.

All law-abiding people will have been appalled by the death of Mr Morley. The Lord Chancellor’s review is timely, and certainly police expect a great deal from it in terms of clarification and in providing a significant deterrent to the disturbing trends in violent crime.

SUPERINTENDENT JIM TROTMAN
Local Police Area Commander,
Oxford

Sir, Since Labour came to power in 1997 gun crime has doubled. There are now 423 firearm offences in Britain each week, and cases of attempted murder with firearms have doubled in the past year to more than 1,200 annually.

After the fatal shooting of WPC Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford, Lord Stevens called for the return of capital punishment for murders of police officers.

Why just for police officers? Was her tragic murder any more harrowing than that of Anthony Walker, who was axed to death when walking down the street minding his own business. Both are tragic, but should one murderer be treated more harshly than another because the victim is a police officer?

Since the abolition of capital punishment hundreds have died violent deaths at the hands of other people. Perhaps if capital punishment had remained on the statute books many of these victims would still be alive today, because their murderers might just have thought twice before committing the crime.

A. P. MOXHAM
Accrington, Lancs

Sir, The idea of recognising different degrees of murder is not itself new. The Homicide Act 1957 restricted the use of the death penalty to cases defined as “capital murder”, which were: murder committed in the course of or furtherance of theft; murder by shooting or explosion; murder while resisting arrest or during an escape; murder of a police or prison officer or persons assisting them; two murders committed on different occasions.

Under that law a robber who resisted arrest by shooting and killing a police officer would be putting his own life at risk; under present law he would face only the possibility of a longer prison sentence than if he surrendered peaceably.

DR D. R. COOPER
Maidenhead, Berks

Sir, Murder in the UK may take on the same categories of first and second degrees, as currently in the United States according to Frances Gibb, your legal editor.

But why not also murder in the first degree if committed in the course of a felony? That would make Damien Hanson and Elliot White guilty of murder in the first degree for the death of John Monckton.

Perhaps murder in the first degree could also include the killing of a police constable or any death from use of a firearm that the perpetrator brought with him to the scene? Now you might also give consideration to executing the murderer as in the US, instead of giving him free room and board for life.

WALLACE EDWARD BRAND
Alexandria, Virginia, US

Sir, Charles Clarke has ordered an inquiry into the murder of John Monckton, and rightly so.

Why then does he feel it unnecessary to have a public inquiry into the murder of 52 and the injuring of hundreds of people on July 7? I suspect that it is purely because the outcome would be damaging to the Government.

PETER TODD
Spalding, Lincs

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