AS someone who has experienced at first hand the "fear of crime" I take great exception to your recent article "Fear of crime doesn't exist" (March 16).

It is now 20 years since I was attacked and robbed in a South London suburb at 7.45pm. I only stayed in hospital overnight but the fear left by that experience has never left me. Even now I cannot walk out alone in the dark.

On the rare occasion that I am forced to walk to my car after dark, if I hear footsteps behind me I stop until the person has passed. Even then I can feel panic starting to rise.

Perhaps Professor Ditton would consider a more common experience, which undoubtedly leads to a fear of crime: house burglary.

Has he had the stomach-churning experience of coming home weeks after a burglary and spotting the light on? Then the gut-wrenching feeling as you put your key in the lock fully expecting the latch to be slipped so the burglar can make a quick get-away?

Prof Ditton should talk to the many people who live alone and will not venture out at night because of groups of youths who congregate at street corners. These may only be laughing and fooling about, but given all the publicity about drugs etc, people are afraid to walk past or talk to them.

What Prof Ditton appears to be incapable of grasping is that crime surveys are not fictional, they are based on the views of real people, often based on personal or witnessed experienced.

Councillor Elizabeth Edge,

Holgate Ward,

West Bank, Holgate.

...YOU report Professor John Ditton as saying that "fear of crime only exists in crime surveys." I was puzzled.

Surveys simply measure perceptions so, if fear of crime did not exist, it would not be possible to measure it. If 80 per cent of residents say they are worried about crime, does their worry not exist?

If 40 per cent say they think the chances of being burgled are high, is this not a genuine concern?

I am concerned, however, at his suggestion that perception surveys should not be carried out at all.

Some surveys are a waste of time, eg constantly asking people how "satisfied" they are with the police in a world where expectations are changing and, therefore, changing the base we are measuring on.

If we do not carry out regular surveys we do not know if residents' worries are increasing or falling away in line with attempts to reduce crime and fear of crime.

The best use of such surveys, I find, is to create a positive future vision of what things can, and should, be like in terms of feeling safe and having confidence in the police.

Then carry out periodic surveys to see if the public think progress is being made towards the positive vision.

Paul Vittles,

Church Farm Close,

Rufforth, York.

Updated: 10:21 Thursday, March 21, 2002