TERRY Smith's letter about Winifred Lumley's horrific attack by a drug addict (May 21) really struck a chord with me.

Do we, however, by our lax attitudes condone this behaviour?

While enjoying a quiet drink in a Micklegate pub recently my ears were subjected to an American tourist busily introducing a dewy-eyed group of teenagers into the dubious pleasures of drug taking.

Everyone within earshot of this loud individual was educated into the art of LSD, heroin and cocaine abuse.

Eventually I had endured enough and left, after first pointing out to his youthful recruits the folly of the downward spiral into drug addiction. My advice, of course, received an f-word reply.

I was a lone voice because no one else there bothered to object. The barman appeared non-committal and his silence indicated that it is a free world.

Free to whom? Certainly not any more to people such as Winifred who will forever fear going outside.

Or is this a different meaning to the word freedom and exclusive only to lawbreakers?

Phil Shepherdson,

Chantry Close,

Woodthorpe, York.

Updated: 12:08 Thursday, May 26, 2005