FOR those of us more accustomed to nodding off to sleep under a solid roof in the same place each night, travellers and gypsies can seem a threatening, and puzzling, presence. Itinerants like those who moved on to the currently empty Silver Cross site at Guiseley last weekend inevitably upset those who live and work permanently in the areas they decide to briefly 'pitch camp' in.

And if, as is often suspected, the travellers concerned deliberately break or damage property to gain access to land, it is hard to feel much sympathy for them when they are eventually evicted.

To the horror of many traditional gypsies, a lot of modern day travellers, like those who outraged the citizens of Ilkley last summer, also tend to leave a trail of rubbish and human waste in their wake, which only harms their cause. But if, as they claim, the travellers in Guiseley this week genuinely did suffer a problem with one of their vehicles and had to stop quickly, it is worth wondering for a second where else they could have gone.

With no official travellers' sites anywhere in the Wharfedale or Aireborough areas, it is hardly surprising that we end up in this situation every now and again. And things are unlikely to change until travellers are given a legal alternative to trespassing or squatting.

Otley for most of the time has an extremely low crime rate. Compared to places like Horsforth and Yeadon, the number of burglaries, muggings and robberies are very low.

So, when two vicious attacks by what police believe were the same gang happens in one night, it is all the more shocking. Both victims were presumably returning home after celebrating New Year's Eve. One was badly beaten for confronting the youths who had thrown a snowball at his car window, shattering it, and the other for presumably just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Described as in their late teens, the youths were both young men and women - and presumably also returning from a night out celebrating. What is particularly horrific, is the scale of the attacks. Both men were repeatedly thumped and kicked - even after falling to the ground.

While we may be lucky in Otley to have a comparably low crime rate, these sort of incidents show that it is still is never far away.