THE undercurrent of violence which runs through society erupts to the surface far too often. You only have to walk through the centre of Worcester at night to sense the hostility on the streets.

In sentencing two brothers to three-month jail terms for an incident in The Butts, District Judge Bruce Morgan said: "Decent people no longer go to Worcester at night because they are afraid."

Now, it seems, decent people across the Faithful City can no longer feel safe in their own neighbourhoods either.

Our front page story describes a truly horrifying event in which a group of eight-year-olds were left cowering in a garden as a gang of teenagers took pot shots at them with an airgun.

Which, quite frankly, sounds more like something out of the Gaza Strip, rather than Ronkswood.

The police response to this incident was disappointing, to say the least. For officers to arrive two hours after the incident - despite being phoned while it was going on - is simply not good enough.

For a police spokesman to then describe the officers as having "responded within the required time-frame" is mealy-mouthed nonsense.

If police had responded at the time, the youngsters could have been caught, punished - and shown the error of their ways.

And just maybe not end up standing in front of a judge, facing a jail term for violence, a few years down the line.