SIR – With their usual exquisite timing the EU parliament has proposed to downgrade the crime of piracy from an act of war to a simple criminal act.

This means that the recent action in which the Royal Navy killed three pirates and handed over a further seven pirates to the Kenyan authorities would no longer be acceptable. No doubt with this new definition it could now be claimed that the pirates’ human rights had been infringed.

Well done the EU for putting the lives of sailors at greater risk.

MARK STARR,

Worcester.