THOUGHT CRIME? When Commissioner Blair has finished his investigation of Sir Iqbal Sacranie (Jasper Gerard, News, last week), he might lead a raid 300 yards down the road from Scotland Yard to Westminster Abbey. He will find numerous books, some hundreds of years old, which describe homosexual acts as “an abomination”. There must surely be some crime he can pin on the Abbey authorities. — John Ball, Barnet, Hertfordshire.
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SEX OFFENDER FILES: In Focus (last week) you give the example of Paul Reeve who accepted a police caution when presented with evidence under Operation Ore. The article states that of the thousands of people whose details appeared on the site, most were cleared, only 1,800 were charged and 1,450 were convicted. According to some experts, Operation Ore has been discredited. — Mark Reynolds, Birmingham.
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RALLYING ROUND: I refer to your article Police force is top gay employer (News, last week). While I have my own views on the gay v non-gay debate, I find it extremely interesting that Staffordshire police will be named winners of the most “gay-friendly” employers. Well done to them. However, I do find it rather unusual that they are allowed to attend up to three gay pride rallies per year in paid police time.
If I were to approach my employer (a large multinational company) and ask for paid time to attend the horse show of the year, a conference on historic matters or, for that matter, any other cause that I felt worthy, I suspect the answer may not be as positive as I would like. — Philip Lennard, Whitstable, Kent.
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FUNDING FIGURES: I was intrigued to read that no lottery funding would be made available to St Paul’s Cathedral, a Christian place of worship (News, January 8). According to the last census, 72% of UK residents stated that they were Christian, therefore it would be hard to classify it as restrictive, especially in the light of the access to other lottery funded building such as local cricket clubs. — Charles Hollingsworth, Maidenhead, Berkshire.