AN £80 fine for dropping a matchstick (Oxford Mail, November 9), yet hundreds of cautions are handed out for GBH in a year.

Is it not time the people of this country said enough is enough?

I daresay the Magdalen College student will be able to afford the penalty, but there are others to whom £80 could represent the difference between adequate and inadequate eating or heating this winter.

Still, it’s easy money. And it gives certain types and their employers a feeling of power.

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford