CAN I point out to Fiona Shepherd that there is a difference between hitting a child and smacking (Letters, May 15).

Hitting is usually done by bullies, drunks, abusive parents. Smacking is showing the difference between right and wrong.

It doesn't have to be a hard smack, sometimes even the threat is enough to sort out the problem. Smacking never did me or my 1950s friends any harm.

In the Evening Press that same evening a headline read 'Nursery vandals fury'. I suggest Fiona Shepherd reads that and tells me if smacking is a crime!

Perhaps if parents took a bit more interest in what their children are up to, instead of taking the easy way out which is letting them do what they want and go where they want, then we wouldn't have to witness vandalism and terror on housing estates all over the country from 11 and 12-year-olds.

Colin Henson,

Moorcroft Road,

Woodthorpe, York.

Updated: 10:24 Monday, May 20, 2002