The statistics about trespass and vandalism on Britain's railways are staggering: 122 lives lost in a year plus 149 other people maimed and injured; train delays of more than 11,500 hours due to line obstructions, costing the industry around £250,000 a week; a repair bill estimated at a similar weekly amount.

Add to that another puzzling statistic: that of the 78 reported incidents of trespass or vandalism in the year to April in Bradford district, 44 were in the Shipley area. It is difficult to know why that should be, but the latest example of railway vandalism in the town - the stoning of a train by two ten-year-old boys - has led to a prospective Parliamentary candidate for Shipley calling for the Home Office to take a tougher line with young vandals.

That is an understandable reaction to the cautioning of the boys, which many will regard as virtually letting them get away with it.

Children are naturally reckless and impulsive, and some of them - often egged on by their peers - take mischief too far until it becomes dangerously destructive. It might well be that harsher punishments could help to make them think twice. Greater parental influence and control would not come amiss, either.

But the youngster could also benefit, surely, from a better example being set by adults, a quarter of whom admitted, in research carried out for Railtrack, that they had committed one or more acts of trespass or vandalism. If there are to be harsher punishments, that is where they should begin.

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