Oversight?

SIR - Still surviving, in spite of the loss of the ‘Tree of the Week’ feature, the Sidmouth Herald review group - meeting at The Balfour on Friday lunchtimes - has felt disposed to comment on last week’s excellent edition:

We admired the colourful photographs and text relating to yet another conflagration at the Fortfield Hotel, but, most of all, it was page 21 - ‘Horse rapist spared jail’ - which caught our attention.

We were particularly puzzled by your report that the culprit ‘was not in a stable relationship’, when he obviously was in a relationship - but not in his own stable!

However, we were perturbed that you had ignored the victim’s right to anonymity by naming her.

This was a serious oversight which breached Amber’s inhuman rights; an error which, we feel, might have been justified had your report given her side of the story.

Keith J Simm

6 Yarde Hill Orchard, Sidmouth.