FOR the third night in a row I was woken up in the small hours of the morning by a burglar alarm going off, probably somewhere in Queen Anne's Road or North Parade. As with the previous incidents it took at least 20 minutes before the alarm was eventually silenced.

Quite apart from the inconsiderate behaviour of car and property owners who fail to stop their alarms promptly these things must be useless at deterring criminals, because everyone knows that they're always going off when they shouldn't.

In the case of most car alarms all it takes is a gust of wind or a cat jumping on the bonnet.

For this reason no one in their right mind would, upon hearing one of these alarms, rush to the scene in order to prevent or stop a criminal act taking place.

Instead they'd do what I did, which was to bury my head underneath the duvet and wish that the alarm's owner could be escorted to a cellar and introduced to The Gimp.

Surely it is now time to ban these electronic boys who cry wolf in the middle of the night and encourage the use of more effective alternatives such as immobilisers and tracking devices on cars, alarm systems which silently make an automated phone call to the police station for homes, and, most importantly of all, far tougher sentences for those convicted of burglary and car crime.

Leo Enticknap,

Ingram House,

Bootham, York.

Updated: 11:16 Friday, November 26, 2004