"WHAT ah'll ne'er understand is this," declaimed Owd Tom, releasing a puff of foul black smoke from his ever fouler black briar pipe, "if the bleeper 'ad 89 previous convictions, why weren't 'e in jail?

"It'd not done 'im any good, a'course, but 'e couldna a'killed that yun lass if e'd been be'ind bars..."

We were standing in the mud of Hard Rock farmyard, peering helplessly down at the wreck of Tom's quad bike, which had been smashed beyond repair in a head-on collision with a police car racing to capture a key witness in the Great Beggarsdale Financial Fraud Caper.

The Dale has been beset by criminal activity for some weeks now, although Owd Tom's quad-bike theft and the breaking and entering at Curmudgeon Corner have now been solved.

Not that this needed Sherlock Holmes (or even Inspector Clouseau) on the case: the lads who stole the bike were riding it when they crashed into the squad car.

They were known to the police and - yes - to us Beggarsdalians, for it was the same two druggies who, last year, burgled most of the weekend cottages in the Dale whilst living un-noticed in the stable block of the Big House.

They had done their 50 hours community service in Mar'ton, you see - for more than 20 break-ins - and with their huge debt to society paid in full, had come back to burgle the ones they had missed.

Owd Tom had more to moan about than most of us because his wrecked quad bike was the second he has lost in as many years. The first was pinched - probably by the same two tearaways, although they have never admitted it - and I had joined him to await the arrival of the insurance assessor.

The insurers seem to think that there is something suspicious about the loss of two such vehicles in two years and Tom asked me to join him to make sure he didn't lose his temper with the assessor.

"Ah'll 'ave lost me no-claims bonus any road - but if ah lose mah temper agin, they might not insure me at all," he explained when asking for my support.

The man was late - lost, no doubt, like most first-time visitors to Beggarsdale - and our talk had turned to crime in general and to one outstandingly awful case in particular.

That was the lunatic driver who killed a six-year-old girl on New Year's Eve, badly injuring her sister at the same time, although he had been banned from driving for life twice and had 89 previous convictions.

And this is where we came in.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of politicians, social workers, probation officers and the like who constantly argue that sending people to prison does no good: it merely makes 'em harder hardened criminals.

Recently, the Lord Chief Justice told locals beaks to stop sending burglars to jail (although he won't admit that the reason is that Gordon "Tight Sporran" Brown won't release the money to build more jails).

Yet the fact of the matter is that prison does work: for the honest people outside.

People behind bars can't break into my house, write-off Owd Tom's quad bike, or poison the magic of New Year's Eve for a young couple for whom, inevitably, it will become a day of mourning for the rest of their innocent lives.

It's a national disgrace that a man with 89 previous convictions was at large to steal a car and kill a child. Sadly, there aren't hundreds of politicians, social works, probation officers and the like brave enough to say it!

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.