Only innocent are punished

Re your Letter of the Day on December 10. How can death be a penalty? Every single human being undergoes death, including your parents, loved ones and not forgetting yourself. Did they, and do you, deserve penalising?

Dying by the hangman's rope is a quick and probably painless death. In no circumstances can that be called punishment. Far from it, in fact. Every human being wishes the end of his or her existence to be a quick, painless death. Why should murderers be accorded this privilege?

Not for them the agonies of cancer, or the infirmities and loneliness of old age. Giving a murderer the opportunity to have a quick and painless death at a known time is do-gooding taken to its highest level.

There is punishment involved - it is the friends and relatives left behind the hanged murderer who suffer. It is local papers, national newspapers and letter writers like you who punish them. In fact, what you are really advocating is their punishment - is that what you want?

Remember the multiple killer Harold Shipman? I believe he hanged himself to escape further punishment. Fred West of Gloucester also hanged himself at the first opportunity. I can still remember the morning Ruth Ellis was hanged. I worked in a factory that employed hundreds of people. The morning shift started at 7am, so we were all present at 8am when she was hanged.

No one spoke, the machines were running but not a human voice was heard. No one cheered. No one I asked thought the world was a better place after her death.

John Gregory, Wolverson Close, Willenhall.