I REFER to MEP G Titley's letter headed, "EU accounts are checked by auditors" (March 2), in response to mine, "MEP action on EU accounts" (February 13).

I quoted information from Chris Moncrieff's column published on January 30, which stated that European Union auditors had refused to approve its accounts for each of the last 12 years.

Mr Moncrieff had previously informed readers that the EU auditors had told us that only seven per cent of their budget had been spent legally.

Mr Titley stated that the claim that the EU accounts had not been signed off for 12 weeks is misleading. Unfortunately, his letter is deceptive, because my letter quotes 12 years.

Is Mr Titley suggesting that the adverse reports concerning the EU accounts published in the national and local papers, over many years, are false?

Readers may recall Anne Scott's letter (February 10) referring to the former chief accountant of the EU being sacked from her job in 2001, when she refused to sign off the accounts. In one year alone, she had allegedly found 10,000 possible cases of fraud in the EU accounts.

K Gratton Tipton Close Radcliffe