All hope is lost if drug dealers escape prison
Durham Chief Constable Mike Barton told The Mail on Sunday last week that ‘low-level’ drug dealers selling heroin and cocaine to feed their own habits will not face prosecution – a move I think is ridiculous.
A friend’s sister was killed by a car driven by a motorist under the influence of drugs, and my mother lives near someone who openly sells drugs.
You can’t tell me these people should not be prosecuted. They are committing a crime.
What next? Are we going to let shoplifters and burglars get away without prosecution because they are ‘sad people’? Addicts may need help, but they can get that in prison when they serve their time for breaking the law. Ryan Webber, Little Neston, Cheshire Perhaps Mike Barton will now stop prosecuting drivers who are just over the drink-drive limit? He might also stop prosecuting motorists who exceed the speed limit slightly. Neither of these two crimes is as serious as dealing in drugs.
Perhaps he should have his employment terminated for not enforcing the laws that he was appointed to enforce. A. Moxham, Great Harwood, Lancashire I can’t understand the furore over the Durham Chief Constable’s declaration not to prosecute low-level drug dealers.
Limited budgets mean that police must focus their resources on the local priorities of increased police presence, violent crime, burglary and anti-social behaviour, not on massive cannabis raids, low-level motoring offences, joyriding or politically correct activities such as appointing ‘hate crime ambassadors’. Roy Daniels, Luton The lax attitude of Durham Police to drugs is in stark contrast to their heavy-handed way with the public.
Recently there was a knock on my door and I was confronted by a very officious PC. I was accused of criminal damage as it would seem that I had inadvertently grazed a neighbour’s wooden planter with my car.
I am a pensioner, and this has upset me and destroyed my faith in the police. Still it was an easy way of increasing ‘result’ numbers – better than dealing with drug dealers and pushers. Have they totally lost the plot? Mike Crawley, Darlington