A WEEK ago, we said we did not want to live in a society where the likes of Mark Payne were left discarded like litter at a canal side.

Now the police and Oxfordshire County Council’s social services have stepped in and Mr Payne, a paraplegic, is at a care home near Bicester.

Mr Payne has had his troubles and was in a terrible state when we interviewed him in a tent at Wolvercote, just as this week’s cold weather was tightening its grip.

He had given up on life.

We hope that the intervention of the authorities has given him the will to continue because no-one deserves to be abandoned.