WE all want our privacy to be protected. But sometimes, by our own actions, we forfeit that right.

When police caught red-handed the yob who had smashed landlord Terry Daly's 200-year-old pub windows with a brick, the least he expected was for the youth to be properly punished.

Instead, police let him off with a caution and advised him to go round to the Old Grey Mare in Clifton Green and apologise.

Some hope. The licensee heard nothing. And to make matters worse, when he rang police to get the youth's name so he could at least demand compensation and ban him, they refused to tell him saying that would infringe the youth's human rights under the Data Protection Act.

What madness. Yes, criminals have rights, of course they do. But so do victims. And all too often these days, it seems the victims' rights count for nothing, while the law bends over backwards to protect those of the criminal.

The yob who smashed the windows wasn't thinking about his victim's rights at all. And that is why the police should now be just a little less solicitous about his own.

If he hasn't got the guts to go round and say sorry face to face, then the very least the police can do is give Mr Daly his name.

That way he would know who to give the repair bill to a bill which could run into hundreds of pounds. And, more to the point, he would know who to ban from his pub in the future.

Police insist they take the treatment of victims seriously.

We are sure they do, when they can. It is the system which is to blame.

Mr Daly says he despairs of justice. Sometimes, so do we.