I felt like telling Leo Cassar, owner of Diesel and Levi’s in Sliema ‘Good on you, man!’ in Aussie style for nabbing those Romanian thieves (The Sunday Times, February 26). It worked. You made it. And this because you had a vested interest in what is rightfully yours and “these Romanian thieves had already taken €1,000 in stock the previous weekend”.

Are the police interested in what is rightfully ours?

When I was mugged in November 2010, in one of a series of muggings when thieves decided to target elderly women coming out of church, which resulted in the death of one unlucky woman, Rose Garroni, I was taken to police headquarters on the Sunday and shown large albums of thieves. I did identify the one who stole my handbag but because the police were more interested in catching some youths with spiky hair full of gel, they were not interested.

I naively asked why my assailant was in the album and where is he now? “Jiġri mas-saqajn, sinjura” (out and about) trying to get money for his drug addiction, they said, because he is on bail.

Another victim had her bag stolen in Dingli Circus when she got out of her shop and because she rested her bag on a window sill while she shut the heavy shutter, a ‘fox’ pounced on her from nowhere and snatched the bag. She had her takings, her mobile, and other valuable contents in the bag.

She had her car keys in hand and got to her car and followed the thief, caught him, but obviously the bag had already gone to some accomplice. Through her help the police got to the thief but when her husband called at the Sliema police station and tried to take a photo of the thief with his mobile phone, he was stopped by the policeman on duty. “No, no,” he told him, “he is innocent until proven guilty!” and again this thief is still doing his rounds, collecting money where he finds it, while he is on bail.

I was advised to write to the Commissioner of Police, in Maltese, and write a good letter. I did. And what did I get? “Madam, you have to be more vigilant”!

So well done to Mr Cassar. He acted in the right way and did what all policemen ought to do to curtail these thefts. We have to admit there are far too many drug addicts who need money, endlessly, and it is the honest citizen who is bearing the brunt of this situation.