I was surprised to see the law can be instantly changed so you can get a five-year prison sentence for mobile phone theft.

I always understood it would take years to change the law, for instance to bring in a prison sentence for killing somebody with a motor vehicle.

Motor transport has been around for more than 100 years and mobile phones about ten years.

The policeman killed in Shoreham by a man who did not stop and then went on to set fire to his van was sentenced to only five years after appeal.

It is a disgraceful situation when the law can be changed so quickly for a minor offence, while killing and maiming is so lightly punished.

I understand about 600,000 phones are stolen each year. If the perpetrators all go to prison, where will they be sent - Cuba?

Our courts will be overworked as well. It seems to take months or sometimes years to bring cases to court, so all the mobile phone robbers will still be out on the streets continuing to cause mayhem.

In reality, since we rarely see a policeman, I suppose the chance of these phone thieves being caught is almost nil.

-Frank Blake, Hove