Madam, - Having read your informative Letters page of December 19th, I must commend Messrs Bartlett, Murnion, McGuire, Healy-Doyle, Davies and Ms Cara Donnellan. I disagree with the remainder of your correspondents, most profoundly with Dr Ruari Hanley.
In reply to Mr Anthony Jordan, a jury may strive earnestly to reach a verdict and still be wrong (eg Birmingham Six, et al). If the jury had found, as it was asked, in accordance with the facts, then a conviction was inevitable. Hence the surprise of Mr Nally and his supporters.
The real tragedy is that these two particular men met on a collision course. Mr Nally had developed an obsessive and unreasonable fear of attack on his property and person by reason of his isolation and some petty pilfering on his premises, and Mr Ward was a disturbed individual on many fronts. The acquittal arose from two factors - firstly, the widespread and not unreasonable fears of home invasion and secondly, the "bad character" of the victim.
The roots of the problem, as I see it are twofold: the general hysteria about the level of crime, generated largely by the media and, it must be admitted, poor performance on the part of the Garda; and the fact that property has become the only god in this country.
While thieves and fine defaulters are serving longer sentences that those who batter, abuse and kill, then the legal system is sick and in dire need of remedy. Property and things can be replaced; people cannot. - Yours, etc,
CATHERINE MURPHY, Larkhill Road, Dublin 9.