SIR - The pictures on the front page of the Worcester News are indeed deeply disturbing. I hope I would be brave (or stupid) enough pitch in to help someone in such circumstances if I saw it happening.

As well as the courts taking action, the police must be allowed to flex their resources to have bobbies on the beat in the city to put people off this disgusting behaviour. The public wants to know that if something like this happens, or they have to help out, the police can get there quickly.

I rang the police one evening a few weeks ago when a gang of drunk or high teenagers were trying to smash the floodlights of the Cathedral and intimidating anyone who went close to them.

They took my mobile number and said they would deal with it. An hour later I left the office, and the same gang tried to jostle me as I got into my car. To my knowledge, the police did not arrive and nor did they ever ring me back. Surely what most of us who use the city centre at night want to see is a reassuring police presence. I'm afraid the thought of a blurred CCTV picture being printing several weeks after taking a thumping would not give me much satisfaction.

They real problem, of course, is the parents of these kids, and how they have brought them up. Mine would no more get involved in a fight than fly to the moon.

IAN SMITH,

Worcester.