SIR – The headline on Page 13 (T&A, December 6) sticks out – ‘MP demands tougher sentences’.

Shipley MP Philip Davies informs us that 240 serious offenders walk free from courts every day, while only 28 are sent to prison.

On Page Four of the same edition, the headline reads: ‘Attacker is spared immediate jail term’. The young man spared the prison sentence was already under the terms of a suspended sentence while committing the latest offence.

In my young days, offenders had the fear of God put into them by the mere threat of a “bender” – a suspended sentence.

The judge sentenced this young offender to a 15-month term of imprisonment suspended for two years.

One must wonder whether this present suspended sentence will be as ineffectual as the previous?

What was it that Mr Bumble said?

Terry Tordoff, Calderstone Avenue, Buttershaw