A COMMUNITY leader who has steered thousands of troubled youths away from crime believes more riots are on the way. Mark Reynolds, founder of Rawthorpe Amateur Boxing Club (RABC), believes community cuts were responsible for the disorder which gripped English cities last week.

Bacup wrote: “If a really sensibly argued set of points put forward by Mark Reynolds are simply dismissed as ‘excuses’ we are going to get nowhere here.

“In hard economic times (even when caused by rich financiers) working people always get targeted and are always branded as ‘the problem.’

“Anybody remember how it was always trades unions blamed for ‘poor economic performance’ and ‘ruining Britain’?

“I condemn the riots because they exhibit the same ethic of selfishness on which this whole society is built. They merely exhibit the morals of finance capitalists – no better, no worse. But if a reasoned letter by someone who works with young people is portrayed as an ‘excuse’ then anyone who tries to explain the feeling on the ground will be ignored.

“We are not an economic system – we are a collection of people.”

But Wakefield was having none of it: “I am always a bit confused when I hear people making excuses for the poor behaviour of disillusioned young people by saying that they have been let down by schools.

“How on earth have they been let down by the schools? Surely they have the same opportunities available to them as every other young person in this country?

“Is it the fault of the schools if certain people choose to constantly disrupt the education of other young people and eventually find themselves excluded from school?”

Golcar thought something was being missed. The shooting of a man in London was one of the reasons for the disorder, but what was happening in our town? “The people who looted used the situation for their own ends.

“The people in Huddersfield who attempted to loot used the situation to demonstrate their stupidity.

“The biggest ‘cuts’ we need to worry about is the reduction in people’s morals.”