20 SEPTEMBER 1957, Page 15

CHILD MURDERS AND THE PRESS SIR, We have had two

dreadful child sex-murders in the last few weeks. The newspapers spread them- selves in columns of fact and comment, but are they not themselves very largely to blame? The more degraded of them, with large circulations, what with pictures of naked or semi-naked 'lovelies' and 'vital statistics' and all the rest of it, keep the pot of sex continually on the boil. What do they expect from the mentally unstable and the psychologically un- balanced? There are no sex murders of children in Spain or Italy. But they are not hypocritical to the point of insanity about sex.—Yours faithfully,

AUSTIN LEE St. Paul's Rectory, 14 Burleigh Street, WC2