Mike Edwards on a decline in the UK's seagull popoulation

Behind the newsroom there was a narrow passage, and behind that, a high wall. For some reason, the passage was a magnet for seagulls which would swoop down and forage for whatever food they could find.

Then, all too late, they made the ghastly discovery that the passage was too narrow for them to spread their wings enough to fly out. The despairing noises they made were unbearable and it was easy to tell when the poor birds were near death.

Whenever this time came, I would duck into the photographer’s darkroom and nick his white coat from its hook. I would open the fire door from the newsroom into the passage and seek out the gull.

You don’t realise how big they are until they’re up close, and even though they were doomed, they still felt threatened enough to have a go at their wannabe saviour as I approached.

After a while, I perfected the knack of lobbing the coat over them. Then I would pick them up, carry them through the newsroom to jeers from my less than compassionate colleagues, and out onto the street, where I would release them.

I see from a survey just published that gull numbers are plummeting because of avian flu and a host of threats to food supply and habitat.

Coincidentally I have noticed a huge increase in the number of dead seagulls on the roads in and around Helensburgh. These birds are usually gallus enough to get out of the road of approaching cars at the last moment, but it seems they are losing their mojo.

Or perhaps they are like those newsroom rescues I made back in the day, and are more lemming than larus.

While it is without question a very good thing that those behind the recent sickening riots are dealt with promptly and publicly by the courts, there is an unhappy by-product.

The best part of the process is that those involved received sentences that was as much a message delivery device as a punishment. Some of these sentences are severe, and so they should be. Some of them are delivered by judges live on television and the internet, again right on the money.

Jail sentences for rioters are leading to overcrowding at England's prisons and the early release of other inmates. (Image: Mark Gibson)

But we hear from south of the border that the jails are so full they cannot cope with the influx of new prisoners, and radical action has to be taken. That radical action is to take the existing prison population and let them out early!

What kind of message does that send? What does that tell people who don’t fancy working for a living and want to explore a life of crime instead?

With extremely few exceptions, people who are in jail deserve to be in jail.

Prison is not about the prisoner. Prison is about society being safer when bad people are behind bars. Letting them out early is an insult to that society, a society they chose to leave by breaking the law.

Moreover it is an insult to their victims.

For me, the radical action that is required is to build new jails, make them none too comfortable, and fill them. And when they are full, build some more.