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Can someone explain to me how a young woman with an unblemished record who defrauded her uncle out of £20,000 gets an almost identical prison sentence to a pervert who downloaded nearly one million images of child abuse.

According to the reports nearly 6,000 of these images are of category 5, which your readers should know can contain images of babies being raped and children being forced to commit acts with animals.

In the UK this ‘person’ would have been sentenced to at least 10 years.

What this farce of a sentence says to the outside world is that the Isle of Man Government puts more emphasise on financial crimes than on crimes against the person.

Also whilst this young woman has had her photo emblazoned all over the various Manx newspapers, the child pornographer is allowed his anonymity. People have a right to know who this person is.

Mark Watson

Tynwald Road

Willaston

Editor’s note: The man who had 900,000 indecent photographs of children was Martin Andrew Cleator, a 45-year-old who lived in Douglas. He was named on the front page of the Manx Independent on February 16 when he admitted his offences and in May 16’s Isle of Man Examiner when he was sentenced.

He was not granted anonymity by the courts. If Isle of Man Newspapers had a photo of him we would have definitely printed it.

society

A few days ago I collected some graffiti art (‘Tom’) on my gatepost.

Not newsworthy, I fear. Putting down brat poison would go some way to a control such nuisances but the police tell me this solution is denied them. Pity.

What maybe newsworthy is that a day or so later a youthful gentlemen called at my door, having himself taken offence at seeing the offence, offering to clean it off.

I am not amongst the politically correct who consider it proper to reward or remark upon the mundane but reserve praise and damnation for events on the lower slopes of the bell curve.

I think your readers might be comforted to know that such selfless offers are still to be had in today’s world and had I not been sufficiently surprised to forget my manners I would have told the caller that to his face. I hope this letter makes adequate amends.

David Varley

Peel Road

Douglas

So [Department of Infrastructure construction manager] Gary Saunders complains that the morale of DoI operational staff is affected by criticism from the public.

I believe the public are well aware that the problems created by the DoI are not created by the ordinary operational staff, but by the people who (allegedly) plan (?) the works.

In the last few years we’ve had the stupid, massive, totally unnecessary, roundabout down south, followed by the Sloc resurfacing (was this REALLY the only job that fitted the remaining budget?).

Currently we have the Foxdale problem. OK the work was badly needed, and it’s difficult to see how the road closure could be avoided.

But the apparent lack of forward planning for this substantial disruption leads one to wonder.

The principal diversion route for traffic from the north-west to the airport (ignoring the ridiculously inappropriate lane from the Hope through the plantation, which should only be one-way even in normal circumstances) is via the TT course to Marown.

Turning south here past the school, the first 100/150 yards of the road is in appalling condition – which will only be worsened by the volume of traffic now using it – but after the first sharp left hand bend it has been re-surfaced recently and is in very good condition

However, in the last couple of weeks work has been going on to rebuild the short stretch of pavement just after this bend, resulting in the closure of half of the road and the use of traffic lights.

Once one has negotiated these lights, the road to Braaid is good. Through the junction towards St Mark’s the road again deteriorates for about 100 yards, before once again the road is in good condition, recently resurfaced

Through St Mark’s, the white centreline was removed about six weeks ago and has not been replaced. Then the road is good again until just outside Ballasalla where, once again it is in very poor condition for the last 100 yards or so.

Questions:

1) Why was the main diversion route not properly resurfaced BEFORE Foxdale started ?

2) Why in three cases (Braaid to Marown, St Marks to Braaid and Braaid to Ballasalla) has a road not been completely resurfaced and a stretch left in poor condition ?

3) Why, when there is apparently not enough money to resurface the many roads which need it, is it necessary to rebuild a short stretch of pavement, which is unlikely to be used by more than a handful of people ?

I’m sure other drivers can come up with many more cases of poor/non-existent planning.

Finally, I’m not sure if this is down to the DoI, but what idiot allowed the closure of large sections of the Ballasalla-St Mark’s-Braaid- Marown road in the middle of the day, for the recent rally?

Annoyed Driver

Name and address supplied

I attended the requisition meeting called to discuss the future of the endoscopy unit at Ramsey and District Cottage Hospital and indeed of the hospital itself.

It seems that despite her calls for more open government and consultation during her past life, our minister for the health service, Mrs Beecroft, has decided to transfer the endoscopy equipment from Ramsey and District Cottage Hospital to Noble’s Hospital without the knowledge of those running the Ramsey hospital or the Trustees or the Friends of the hospital or the staff.

This is in effect a decision to steal the equipment in question, as it was bought with money raised by public donation specifically for Ramsey and District Cottage Hospital.

It belongs, at least morally, to the RDCH, not her department.

I wonder if she and her department actually have the right to take this action without the consent of the RDCH management and trustees?

Should this transfer go ahead, it puts in question the ability of the Friends and Trustees of Ramsey Hospital to raise money in the future for more equipment, as we the public will never be sure that that what is purchased with our donations will be safe in Ramsey, or whether it will “go in the front door and out the back” and end up in Noble’s instead.

The words – party and brewery spring to mind.

Malcolm Meddings

Kelly Road

Sulby

In today’s letter I reveal how children, pensioners and the disabled are being ripped off on the island’s buses by being overcharged fares.

As a pensioner I have a ‘go silver’ concessionary card which entitles me to free travel on the buses and half fare during peak periods which are before 0900 hrs and between 1600 hrs and 1730 hrs.

I travelled from Ramsey to Peel during the peak period of 16.00 hours to 1730 hrs and was charged £1.60 for a single journey. I didn’t know what the adult single fare for this journey was so I asked Isle of Man Bus and Rail to provide me with copies of the fare tables referred to on their website. This revealed that the adult single fare for my journey was £3.10, half of which is £1.55, not the £1.60 which I was charged.

Further examination of the tables revealed however that the majority of ‘half fares’ were 5p more than half the adult fare, but in some cases the half fare was 15p more than half fare.

I raised this with Isle of Man Bus & Rail band was advised that ‘we’ round the fares up to the nearest 10p.

I took issue with Isle of Man Bus & Rail over this statement and in no uncertain terms pointed out that it is not within the gift of ‘we’ to round up fares and that the DoI had determined that persons entitled to the concessionary fares are entitled to pay half fare during the peak periods i.e. not half fare rounded up.

I pointed out also that in some cases their rounding up wasn’t to the nearest 10p as the fares were 15p higher than half fare. Who are these people who think that ‘we’ have such powers?

I pointed out also that their website states that children, pensioners and the disabled are entitled to pay half fare during the peak periods and that in a circular letter sent out with the go silver card distribution by Mr Ian J Longworth, director of public transport, as recently as the April he had confirmed that children, pensioners and the disabled are entitled to pay half fare during the peak periods.

I’ve said to the author of the letter from Isle of Man Bus & Rail that unless she can produce to me an extract from the minutes of a meeting of her department at which it decided that concessionary fares were to be rounded up, then I have to insist that she refund to me the 5p which I was recently overcharged and I look forward to receiving such sum from her.

It’s the principle of being wrongly overcharged here that I object to, not the amount involved.

My e-mail was sent on May 8 but as of the date of this letter I haven’t even received an acknowledgement of it let alone a reply. Your readers will know me well enough to understand that I will obtain one.

Trevor Cowin

Poortown Road

Peel