This is appalling but I'm not entirely sure, Rapaire, that this does demonstrate how much, or how little, children are valued by our society. I think it goes deeper than that; it is more rotten than that.

The British government have the Children Act in law. It's too much to go into here, but the bottom line is that any child who alleges anything against any adult is, by default, believed to be telling the truth. The adult is, by default, believed to be guilty until proven otherwise. The thinking behind the Act is that all children are truth-tellers and all adults are liars.

If you are British and work in a job where you come into contact with children on a daily basis - teacher, child-minder, social worker - then you probably know someone who has has their life ruined by this Act, either for weeks, months, years or forever.

When murderers come out of jail to offend again, when innocent people take years to be released, when the frightened go to jail for acting in self-defence against known thugs, then the whole system of law is in need of a radical shake-up. What this story and my comment above demonstrates to me is that the entire criminal law system needs a fundamental overhaul.