HAVING read about recent events in the newspapers I am going to sue my parents.

At 23 I feel I can now bring reasonable charges against my parents and, under the present spate of bizarre, if not downright ridiculous claims that are being agreed to in the British and European courts, I would win enough to never have to work again.

When I was a child I wasn't allowed to eat so much junk food from fast food outlets that I became overweight and ill. On a sunny day I was made to play outside. I didn't have access to a computer at home until I was 14.

I had to go to church when I was a child. If I told lies I was told off and if I had dared to show my parents up in a shop, I wouldn't have been shouted at - I would have been taken home with nothing.

As for school, I was the headmaster's daughter for five years: can you imagine what might have happened if I had gone home and said I had been thrown out of a lesson?

All this has made me a reasonably well-rounded individual complete with a good education and a job.

I wonder how much I would win?

Emma-Dawn Loftus,

Green Lane,

North Duffield, Selby.

Updated: 11:39 Friday, December 12, 2003