Letter: Pinochet's law

Sir: About Pinochet and the like, you quote "be you ever so high, the law is above you". ("Change the law to catch a tyrant", 29 October). Lord Denning made this boast, but has it ever been true in England?

We have seen a senior French politician being taken straight from his office to prison, another having the valuables from his house impounded in case he was thinking of absconding. In the United States, Wall Street squillionaires and the President himself find they are very much not above the law.

Has this ever happened in England? English justice has certainly been effective at imprisoning women for a library fine, and, occasionally, some lower-class murderers and thugs. But whenever the accused is rich or important, he is ill, or immune, or the case is bungled, and - always - his wealth is not endangered.

Have there in this century been any major criminals who were rich and important and who have been seriously inconvenienced by English justice?

GEORGE STERN

London N6