Letter: King's Cross deaths could be due to police clean-up

AS THE MPs for King's Cross, we reject Nick Cohen's statement ('Purity that kills in the darkness', 11 April) that King's Cross 'is a little world of its own' and 'home to an underclass with nothing to do but inject and sell themselves; to beg, steal and deal'. That's just not so.

Virtually all the drug users and pushers, most of the prostitutes, and all of their clients, come from outside King's Cross. They come to the area because it has been allowed to become a seedy supermarket for drugs. Most King's Cross residents have nothing to do with drugs or prostitution yet are expected to live in an area that is drug-ridden and violent.

Would ministers, civil servants and magistrates be willing to try to bring up families in King's Cross? If not, they must find the resources to raise standards to levels acceptable to them. Nothing less will do.

Chris Smith MP

Frank Dobson MP

House of Commons, SW1