SIR - "Parents to pay for the crimes of their children". This this is almost as good a joke as the fining yobs by taking them to cashpoints idea that never worked (as mentioned in your Comment column). Perhaps both these ideas were dreamed up by the same spin merchant. He or she must be of the opinion that we voters are sufficiently stupid to believe anything we are told. No wonder the Home Office was recently declared to be "Unfit for purpose". The yobs and cashpoints idea was a non-starter because yobs do not have bank accounts. In a similar vein, this idea will fail dismally because you can't get blood out of a stone. How on earth is a single mother scratching a living on benefits or a father earning just over the minimum wage ever going to pay "up to £5,000" in fines or compensation in restitution for the damage caused by their child?

I see you also mentioned a spokeswoman saying "she did not know if parents would be fined for not paying the compensation". Why didn't she know? Surely this is rather important because what on earth is the point of awarding compensation if it is possible to get away with not bothering to pay it? Yet again we seem to have another "clever dick" policy that hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding, being suggested by people who just haven't bothered to talk to real people in the real world about real problems.

J LEWIS,

Worcester.