WILL Mrs K Ottewill (Bolton Evening News, April 10) not just condemn corporal punishment, which worked perfectly well until the 1970s, but give us the alternative?

What would she say to the three OAPs who, during recent weeks, have been beaten up in their own homes? CEEFAX recently also detailed two boys, aged 13 and 14, with two girls, aged 11 and 12, who broke into a house and beat up an OAP. These youths, Mrs Ottewill, do not fear a toothless law or the police and know no one can touch them and that people like you defend them. Why do you ignore the majority of children who just want to learn but are disrupted by a badly behaved few?

In the so-called bad days of C.P., when every class in every school had one or two troublemakers, they were kept in place by a deterrent, knowing the simple rule -- do wrong, get caught, get punished. It worked. More importantly, it kept those on the fringe of bad behaviour on side. Now they have nothing to fear.

Please explain why, since C.P. was stopped, has violence by children, now as young as six and seven, gone through the roof, but has yet to register with the anti-C.P. group? Many items in the following were unheard of 15 plus years ago, but now are the norm. They have either increased or been created and are still on the rise -- vandalism, theft, truancy, arson, under-age drinking and pregnancies, car alarms, house alarms, personal alarms, hospital security, drugs in schools, violence to people, murder etc, and yet the anti groups feel no shame. Their liberal attitudes have done children no favours. Childhood used to end at 15. Now, for many, it is 10. We have seen declines in some areas -- morals, discipline, manners, respect for anything.

Mrs Ottewill says we should respect children. Why? What happened to earning respect? Nor are they taught respect or manners in school, so don't show it.

She also says "anti social behaviour is due to teenagers' parents suffering punishment by their parents". Contradictory, as it means punishment worked and teenagers became anti-social when punishment stopped.

There is also another group of people who supported the C.P. ban -- teachers. Not all, but enough, mainly in infant schools. Now today's teachers suffer.

It is difficult to blame youngsters for all their wrongs when adults reversed the teaching of "right from wrong" into giving them Rights to be Wrong.

Geoff Pollitt

Towers Avenue

Deane, Bolton