Women lie
I, LIKE many others ,was appalled to read the front page of the Daily Mail - March 8 - of the story of the Cambridge student put on trial for rape when the case against him was flimsy to say the least.
Non-existent would be a better phrase.
It took the jury just long enough to have a cup of tea before throwing the case out.
This is relevant to every town in Britain today, where we continue to see a police force (and Crown Prosecution Service) determined to hound any man so accused while at the same time treating the accusers like the Archangel Gabriel.
This is what happened in Cambridge and it could happen here too.
At some point it needs to be pointed out women lie as much as men do, and as any child knows - if you know your lies are going to believed you will continue to tell them.
This current bias towards those making allegations should worry your female readers as well ­ most of them will have brothers or sons too. The fact that Bexhill police last year wasted hundreds of man hours and thousands of pounds hunting a rapist that didn't exist is testament to this phenomenon happening here.
The police also showed they cannot be trusted to uphold the law, or men's rights, when they let the woman who lied go with a "telling off."
Their inaction over such an outrageous matter should have been met with more powerful official condemnation from councillors or the local MP, but it was left to your readers to voice such opinions.
How would you feel if next time the police catches the person who's burgled your house or mugged you in the street, they let them go with a "telling off?"
As a famous columnist says "You couldn't make it up!"
J. HICKS
Little Common Road
Bexhill

Dog owners
OWNERS who allow their dog to run free, rather than walking and keeping under control, don't love their dog. If they do not care what happens to their dog, why do they have one in the first place? And, do they care about anyone who might be affected or injured by their actions?
Vaccination gives a dog (or, for instance, any domestic animal), a certain degree of immunity from infectious diseases, however, straying dogs are at a high risk of parasites.
Furthermore, they irritate people, be it a homeowner, pedestrian or driver. Owning a dog (any pet) comes with responsibility. Being a responsible dog owner includes being a good neighbour and making sure your dog is too.
Otherwise, it is total lack of care for other members of society, pure selfishness. The trouble is neighbourliness and responsibility is dying out, they are things of the past.
E. D. COOK
Sandhurst Lane
Bexhill

Absolute hyperbole
I REFER to your article ("Rye Observer" March 7) in which you state Cllr Fiddemore wished to disassociate herself with the Campaign for a Democratic Rye Group because it was causing divisions within Rye Town Council. She is also reported as saying that she would like to see the end of this pervasive "them and us" attitude.
This is absolute hyperbole.
The Group are as anxious as the Town Council to see greater devolvement of power come to Rye. It is just a difference of approach to the same goal.
We shall be discussing this with the Town Council and the surrounding parishes who have as much interest to see more devolvement of power come to them as to Rye itself. Our approach is more radical as the Group feel decisions on planning would be far better taken locally than in Bexhill, a matter dear to the hearts of those affected by the bad decisions that have been made in the past.
The Town Council will agree with us that it is essential the people of Rye have a say in the future of their town. This is vital for the preservation of Rye's historical heritage, its tourism and other industries. There is no division there. We just feel this might be better achieved by the establishment of an Area Committee.
Unfortunately, the route being examined by the working group on Rye Town Council through having "Quality Status", planning decisions are excluded from their remit. It has to be remembered that the Town Council at present can only recommend decisions to Rother District Council who make the final decision, some of which are not always in the interests of Rye.
Divisions of opinion do sometimes arise on many subjects that come to be considered in the chamber of Rye Town Council. I believe this is what we call democracy when the vote is taken. It is healthy to have debate. There is nothing "pervasive" about that. Each one of us have opinions. Are we not allowed to express them?
CLLR GRANVILLE BANTICK
Chairman of the Campaign for a Democratic Rye Group and Rye Town Councillor

Thanks to staff
ON Saturday I visited, with my mother, the cemetery at Forest Hill, where my granny is buried.
The gravestones are in great need of some TLC. A lot have fallen over the years.
The roads and paths need a lot of attention as well. The whole cemetery generally needs a good tidy up.
I also visited where my brother Richard's ashes are, in the Remembrance Gardens.
They have hung lots of flowers all over the area. I felt it did not feel like a proper Memorial Garden.
When I lived at Penhurst there was a small graveyard at the rear of the church.
It was a lovely small church and there were old gravestones by the side of the church.
There were several new graves at the rear. It was always clean and tidy.
We often used to go to Ashburnham church, another lovely church, in the heart of Sussex.
Unfortunately, during the storms of '87, everything was changed, for the worse. So many trees were blown down.
I am sure, if Lord and Lady Ashburnham were to see it now, they would be very upset.
My dad is buried at Battle Cemetery. He died when a routine prostate operation went wrong at The Conquest.
The cemetery at Battle is lovely, always quite and very peaceful.
When I was at Battle and Langton School, we would play football on the school pitch, at the back of the school.
The ball would sometimes end up over the fence, in the cemetery.
I also frequent Hastings Cemetery, another lovely and well presented cemetery, which is always clean and tidy.
Many thanks to all of the ground staff.
JOHNNIE ELLIOTT,
Starrs Mead
Battle

Written with MP in mind
I WOULD like to acknowledge that the following lines are based very loosely on the famous poem 'IF', written by Rudyard Kipling. In my case they are written with our MP Mr M. Foster in mind.
If you can keep your head when all about you hold you in disdain,
For they see you as immoral as you make untruthful claims;
If you can sign away the sovereignty of our beloved land,
And become a paid-up member of the EU venal band;
If you give away the freedoms of the people they hold dear,
Yet not be bound by Manifesto promises made so clear;
If you will not hear the voices of your voters at this time,
Yet hope they listen to your future promises sublime;
If you can connive with others and act so underhand,
And take us all for fools who simply do not understand;
If you're purblind to what's obvious and plain to all right now,
That our democracy is damaged by this EU Treaty row;
If you've bartered your integrity in an EU Treaty vote,
And only gained the Whip's tired nod, yet nothing of real note;
If you can defend the EU Treaty, which is, in all but name,
The rejected Constitution, rehashed, just the same;
Then the earth will keep on turning and the seasons come and go,
Until the voters of our country can deliver their own blow.
RODERICK STUART
Church Lane
Iden

Vindictive reply
WITH regards to Mr Mears' somewhat vindictive reply, I would like to make something crystal clear. I most certainly do not have a 'hidden agenda', I can assure you. My own goal as you put it Mr Mears, was to simply have the audacity to criticise Winchelsea town!
I would also like to point out Mr Mears, that it was I, me, Mrs Joyce - not St Thomas' School, voicing their concerns.
My overall concern Mr Mears in my original letter was regarding the impending(?) recycling scheme within Winchelsea town and felt rather saddened by your reply. Was it really necessary to involve personal conflicts as a diversion to skirt the real issue? (If only your response to the lack of recycling was as animated.) Everyone is entitled to an opinion Mr Mears and prior to this turning into a scribed ping-pong match that is all I am going to say on the matter.
Your message to the readers however, Mr Mears came across very clearly.....take heed anyone tempted to write in with a dampened view of Winchelsea town.
JACQUI JOYCE,
Winchelsea Beach

Plastic bags hysteria
THE hysteria surrounding the use of plastic bags has reached the South East; your article, "Council Declares War on The Plastic Bags".
Councillor Prochak asked the Council to recognise that plastic bags take 400 years to degrade, while the Daily Mail in one of their campaigns reports 1,000 years! Environmentalists and other self serving pressure groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace add to the furore by stating that 100,000 turtles, dolphins, fish and sea birds are killed annually by plastic bags and yet no-one questions these figures.
How can anyone believe that a flimsy piece of plastic takes up to a thousand years to break down, and we know about accelerated testing techniques, computer models and other dubious and doubtful methods of arriving at the figure required by the researchers.
Regarding the threat to wildlife, who carried out the survey, sounds like a Greenpeace venture to me, so where and when was the survey carried out? Given that the Globe is mainly covered with water, this would require an international effort which is most unlikely as there is so much going on at the moment.
Turning to the reason for the new legislation being considered by Government to force supermarkets to refuse to supply or to charge for the use of plastic bags, this is all to do with reducing our carbon footprint and the carbon emissions during their manufacture which is blamed for climate change and global warming, probably the greatest con ever and swallowed in its entirety by the Green lobby. We are told that there are 385 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, more than at any time in the last 400,000 years! Fairly easy to count the bubbles in the ice cores and come to an unprovable conclusion, but who measures the levels today and where? At a thousand feet over the Atlantic, over the Sahara, at ground level in Beijing?
No! The fact is that there is at the moment, no industry standard for measuring emissions from power stations or from factories, only from cars and lorries. The mis-information continues daily and has been noted as an opportunity to capitalise on a rising tide of environmental concern. In other words, plant a tree, re-use your bag, walk everywhere and feel good about your contribution to saving the planet.
HARRY KENNARD,
Main Street,
Peasmarsh