Litterers "are like the Wests"

People who drop sweet wrappers are acting like a Gloucester couple who tortured, raped and murdered at least 12 young women, an Anglican bishop has said.

In a letter featured in parish magazines in the Diocese of Lichfield, the Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell, wrote: "Fred and Rosemary West represent merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck."

"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about litter, we are as guilty as they were - we are in effect kidnapping young women and submitting them to a brutal ordeal of torture and rape before murdering them and burying them in the garden."

He said people were "right to be disgusted at these crimes" but that "mere disgust is too convenient".

"There are lessons for all of us to learn," he added.