I HAVE noted several times in your Scales of Justice (magistrates’ court cases) page that many offenders are told to pay a £15 victim’s surcharge.

What puzzles me is that, in many cases, it is not clear that there is a victim.

I don’t object to magistrates fining people who have broken the law, but it downgrades the concept of victims of crime being given due consideration, if this surcharge is just a small top-up fine masquerading as something noble.

MARY AITCHESON Oxford