SIR: When schools and mental health organisations work hard to provide information and spread understanding about mental illness, it is both shocking and disheartening to see the front page of the BEN (April 18).

You select the word CAGED to introduced the story of the murderer, Robin Pask, of the York University Lecturer.

The implication is presumably that this man is an animal. In a civilised society, sympathies should be apportioned between the families of the victim and the perpetrator of the crime.

One was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The other was suffering from a serious mental illness that no one recognised in time to save both families from the dreadful outcome. Please consider carefully the subliminal impact of your headlines.

Such views were used to instigate witch-hunts in earlier centuries.

Sandra Simpson

Albert Road West, Bolton

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