IN the Bolton Evening News of Friday, October 30, you asked readers of your newspaper to give their opinions on the prosecution of Farnworth shopkeeper, Mr Mukesh Patel, due to the method he had used to defend himself from a knife-wielding raider who threatened him in P & P Stores.

When I read of such incidents, I feel that the law is very hard to understand or credit, and I wonder who's side it is now defending. Is it that of the innocent law-abiding citizen going about his lawful, daily business, or the criminal element in every town or city nowadays, skulking around our premises hoping to manage to break in and walk off with re-saleable items in order to obtain money to pay for a drug habit (as, indeed, it appears likely to have been the case on this occasion, as the robber has since died of a drugs overdose?

One wonders what on earth the law felt that Mr Patel SHOULD have done, or would have done themselves if they had been standing in his shoes at the time.

It is not at all difficult to imagine how vulnerable small shopkeepers must feel nowadays, especially when working alone in their shops. And it's not difficult either to appreciate their being inclined to keep under the counter some item to use in their own defence -- just, as in this case, Mr Patel's worst fears so obviously were.

No, in my opinion, it was NOT right that Mr Patel was prosecuted for his actions.

Rosemary Joy Ahmad, Ainslie Road, Heaton, Bolton. I

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.