The letter from Prof David Thomas of Hertford College, Oxford (31 March), raises the question of how an Oxford University eight might fare if 300 independent college crews were to compete in the Boat Race. Such a race has existed since 1926 – the Head of the River Race, an open event that attracts over 300 entries annually, rowed over the same course as the Boat Race. An Oxford college crew has never won this, and the only Oxford University crew to do so was its Isis reserves in 1957. But a local rival institution, Oxford Brookes University, has won five times in the last 10 years.
Paul Tattam
Chinley, Derbyshire
• By not appearing in the dock to face his sentence of a minimum of 42 years in jail, the child murderer Thomas Cashman has – it seems to me – not fully faced justice, and has been allowed to defy the court (Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s mother speaks of heartbreak after killer’s sentencing, 3 April). The law should be changed.
John Jones
London
