Letter: Perverted policy on sentencing

Sir: I should like to draw attention to two articles in "Significant Shorts" (14 December). In one, a priest had abused his position of trust and admitted to 25 cases of indecent assault on children over a 14-year period. In the other a man had been convicted for cultivating cannabis.

In the former, damage had been done not only to the Roman Catholic Church but, far more seriously, to those children. In the latter, a therapeutic plant that people don't die from or become addicted to was being produced.

The priest got two-and-a-half years, the gardener four. I suggest that it is not only the priest that is perverted, but also the legal system that thinks we need more protection from the latter than the former.

MARK TACEY

HM Prison Exeter