IT was interesting reading The Bishop of Worcester's Diary (Evening News Aug 9). His essage was clear "hitting children is unacceptable", he says.

I disagree entirely. Children as young as 12 are knocking pensioners to the ground and stealing their purses.

They are throwing stones at passing buses regularly and they are up to all kinds of other devious practices all because discipline is missing, due to misguided people who think word of mouth is the only justifiable solution.

There is an old adage that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. This was the practice not too many years ago and it worked. There is no good reason why it shouldn't work now.

D.PARKER,

Windermere Drive,

Worcester.