Letter: Mum's the word - but not the right one

Letter: Much praise has been heaped upon Tania Garwood for persuading her 18 year old son to give himself up to police after throwing a fire extinguisher from the roof of Conservative Party headquarters.

As a former probation and prison welfare officer, I recall my perceptions of "mother love".

As a probation officer I saw persistent young offenders persistently protected and defended by persistently malfunctioning mothers.

As a prison welfare officer, I saw the reinforcement of criminality of these young men at visiting time.

Enter mum, floods of tears, much hugging and questions like, "how are they treating you darling?"

I pondered whether the outside world was asking similar questions to the victims of the crimes these "darlings" committed.

Let's consider that incident in which Tania Garwood's son threw that fire extinguisher.

He was recognised thanks to CCTV, mobile phone footage etc.

The same sort of footage showed film of a man suffering from cerebral palsy being dragged from his wheelchair by two police officers.

Since the police do not "grass" on their colleagues, when will these two officers' mothers persuade their sons to give themselves up?

Tania Garwood is a real rarity.

The vast majority of the "law-abiding" mothers wouldn't dream of urging their sons to "do the honourable thing."

And that's the irony - these mothers consider themselves honourable.

Fred Phipps

Shrewsbury