120 years on: voices on child abuse.

A cry for help "It can't have been very bad because they only gave me a year's probation." She sat back, squat and seeming self satisfied. She showed me how she had held him down with her left arm as she put her right hand over his face and mouth. Yes he did struggle, but the left arm pinned him down. Her other child had died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 9 months. If she had been a man she would have been in Broadmoor or Rampton. If she had been a man who had inappropriately fondled his daughter a prison sentence would have been likely. But the judge had "no doubt that she loved her son and indeed loved all children." He was sure there was no malevolence on her part and that she was in need of help not punishment. It was, as the social worker had testified, a cry for help.