I watched a tv review programme recently where hundreds of viewers complained about the graphic nature of television images showing events in Ukraine.

The images apparently showed a grenade landing near a police officer, his attempts to move it and a boot flying through the air, which could have been his foot.

Several people complained, saying it was too graphic, too awful for the man concerned and should not have been shown on lunchtime tv. Why not?

We live in a society where news is 24 hours a day and often, due to smartphones and social media, evolving in front of us.

Many ordinary people in the Ukraine are facing a potential catastrophe and millions of families in Syria are living a nightmare daily.

Why shouldn’t we be made to feel uncomfortable in our Wiltshire homes? We can always turn over or turn off.

There is an argument over taste, decency and time of day, of course. Mostly that argument doesn’t relate to evolving news events.

I did not find these pictures to be distasteful. For me, they are real, this is actually happening and people in crisis wish to be acknowledged, heard and listened to.

After all, remember the graphic images around the murder of soldier Lee Rigby.

Should we have been spared that on tv? Would that have made the pain of his family any less? When an English soldier is murdered in cold blood, in broad daylight on our own streets? Which horror is more suitable for our sensibilities?

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