Your front-page coverage on Wednesday of the release of a Braemar Hill killer was deeply distressing. Taken together with the article 'Give killer a chance, teacher urges' - Chris Forse's views - it only exacerbates the anguish and anger these horrific 1985 murders evoke.
By all accounts, Won Sam-lung is an extremely lucky man. He is alive. And he is free at the age of 35, in the prime of his life. He is lucky that a legal technicality saved him from sentencing as an adult, although by published accounts, he was a street- wise thug, and no callow youth. He was lucky in that Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa was prevailed upon, apparently without consultation, to apply a sentence which made certain his release after a relatively short term. He was lucky in that the Long Term Prison Sentence Review Board, meeting in secret behind closed doors, approved his release.
Mr Forse no more 'owns' this matter than any one of us. His views deserve no more prominence than those of any other citizen. Society determines acceptable standards, and the punishment for crimes committed. I am sorry Mr Forse, but I feel that I also 'own' Nicola Myers and Kenneth McBride and my views and those of numerous others have not been taken into account.
What crime, if any, is so bestial, so horrific, that rehabilitation is simply not on offer? If the savage and brutal murders of Nicola and Kenneth do not qualify, then there must be none that do. A term certain, and the statements of remorse are all that is required. This is not the justice system that I want for the city I call home.
CLIVE NOFFKE, Lantau
Towards cleaner buses