SIR - Over the last few days we have seen the most bizarre events unfold in the media, that are totally without precedent.

I refer of course to the outrageous imprisonment of teacher Gillian Gibbons, in the Sudan.

This kind of honourable woman felt duty bound to go abroad and help a less privileged people. Her thanks for her efforts were to be imprisoned for doing nothing wrong at all, in the eyes of God or man.

The Sudanese government should be proud of themselves. They have managed to do in a few days what the likes of Bin Laden, Abu Hamza and their minions were unable to do over decades, that is to strike a wedge between East-West relations, and to create mistrust between Islam and Christianity.

This deplorable act must not go without a response from Britain.

No doubt there are a fair few prisoners from the Sudan luxuriating in our four-star penal establishments.

Their sentences should be commuted and they should be deported post haste back from whence they came, never to return. No ifs no buts.

Terry Tordoff, Calderstone Avenue, Buttershaw

  • SIR - Whatever the rights and wrongs of the "Teddy Bear Naming" fiasco, you've got to admire the swift efficiency of the Sudanese legal process.

In barely more than a week, an "offender" was identified, arrested, charged, tried, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated.

Compare that to our abysmally slow, procrastinating, hand-wringing system and perhaps there is something we might learn from such a "third-world" state.

Who was it said: "Justice delayed is justice denied"? They were obviously an inspiration to the Sudanese.

Graham Hoyle, Kirkbourne Grove, Baildon