WHAT on earth is happening to our town?

Drunken teenagers in Westhoughton trash a garage, nine cars and a lorry in a £5,000 plus wrecking spree, while in another part of the area 20 residents wake up to find their car tyres slashed.

Meanwhile, in Halliwell -- as in several other parts of the town -- mindless yobs not only make pensioners' lives hell with firework mayhem, but one threatens a woman by holding a lighted firework to her face.

As one Westhoughton resident aptly observed: "The kids around here are ruling themselves. There is no one to stop them."

But there is.

Not only is there a police force and magistrates to enforce the laws by which we are ALL meant to abide, but these teenagers all have parents.

And, in spite of what many of these adults would prefer to believe, they are still responsible for them, by law.

The residents in these latest attacks are, quite rightly, angry. Police are investigating. But something much more than these, now routine, reactions needs to happen.

Vandals have to be shown -- by a quick crackdown by police of the culprits, backed by the courts -- that this is not only an unacceptable crime, but that it carries a realistic penalty that hurts their pocket, their freedom or both.

Their parents need to be shown that the rest of the community refuses to pay the price any longer for their denial of responsibility.

And that, if they wish to ignore their children's behaviour outside their home, then they must be made to compensate their neighbours for their shortcomings as a family.

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