YOU'D be a hard-hearted soul, indeed, if you read Lauren Davis' story today and didn't feel at least a twinge of compassion.

She was born almost a year ago with a rare digestive order which means she can't hold down food.

For most of us, thank goodness, the closest we come to such a trial of life is through the columns of a local newspaper or a fly-on-the-wall television documentary.

Lauren's plight first touched Evening News readers last summer and, even though the fact that her condition can't be reserved by current medical science means we can't bring you the ultimate good news story, today, we hope you'll share some of her family's hope that she'll be well enough to spend her first birthday at home in Worcester with them next week.

"We'd love to throw a party for her," says her grandmother, Josie Cornes. "These past few months have been quite an ordeal, but it's just amazing that she's here at all."

We wish them all well, and know that you will too.

Not so the cheats being targeted by TV Licensing officials and their high-tech detection equipment in Worcestershire, though.

The message is that they can't run and they certainly can't hide.

"The new stealth activity aims to catch evaders off guard," head of prosecutions John Robinson has told the Evening News, with impressive confidence. "It's just a matter of time before they're caught."

So they must be.

Let's not make the mistake of regarding these "evaders" - if that's what we have to call them - as rogues who deserve to avoid paying a licence fee, if only for their cheek in trying to beat the system.

They're thieves, nothing more and nothing less. And the £1,000 fine looming like a cloud with every slow van passing their homes is exactly what they deserve.