Last Saturday’s newspapers had in some cases screaming headlines, where women figured prominently and unusually on the front pages.

The first was about an elderly woman who had been missing for ages and had been found, sadly dead, but probably not due to foul play. Her dementia may have made her wander to her death. The second story was about a mum jailed for serious physical abuse of her five-month-old daughter.

The injuries were serious. The punishment was apparently less so. Two years jail for fracturing your kid’s limbs and ribs seems like nothing at all. Yet the judge only jailed her for two years because she apparently has two other kids to look after! In other words she was jailed for a short term so she could soon come out to return to mothering her other two children. And then we read this woman was herself abused as a child, so it does make you wonder what sort of deterrent prison would be anyway?

I know it’s no excuse but if you have been abused as a child, and are of below average intelligence how on earth can you cope with babies? Babies are beautiful but tiring. Babies ruin our sleep and make us irritable. Granted, most of us don’t abuse our kids if we’re tired and frazzled, but those of us who haven’t been abused by our parents or others, have very little ability to understand the mindset of the abuser. And most of us who have suffered disturbed sleep know that feeling of absolute pre-explosion where you just don’t know what holds you back from totally freaking out, or letting out no more than the odd scream or two.

I found the logic behind the sentencing very strange, although I am sure the judge’s intentions were to reach a humane compromise. On the one hand if prison is the answer – two years is way too little for injuring a baby. On the other hand, why only two years to allow her to look after the other two? Who is sure that she has not and will not abuse the other kids? Is it safe to leave this woman with children? What would the courts do if she became pregnant again? Would another baby automatically be taken away at birth? Or would society wait and see?

It seems, from our media at least, that the most hated figures in society are women cum mothers who abuse their children. When we read a story of, say, a male paedophile, it’s usually tucked away without too much prominence. But the woman who abuses is the scum of the earth. In a country where women are meant to be madonnas there is very little sympathy and understanding for the trials of motherhood.

I am worried about this woman. Particularly if she has been a victim of abuse herself. I know being abused does not always make you an abuser and is not an excuse in itself, but if she has three children to look after what is a prison term going to serve? Perhaps she should in future only be allowed to be with her children if supervised? Perhaps all her children should be fostered or adopted. But putting her away for two years doesn’t really seem to me to be very useful.

It’s similar to putting people with drug problems behind bars. First of all, in all prisons all over the world drugs always seem easily available, and no drug addict gets cured of his addiction by a jail term. And what abuser gets cured, stopped or helped by going to jail? Stopped maybe temporarily but patterns of behaviour can’t change because of being sent to jail.

I know we view all who abuse children as the lowest of the low. So do I. Paedophiles fill all parents with horror and I would support forcibly giving them any sort of drug if it were possible to eliminate their terrible sexual desires. But a woman who has been abused as a child has particular problems and needs help. Perhaps her children, all of them, have to be taken away from her as the child’s safety must come before anything. But she still needs a lot of help.

But I do hope that when we jail abusers who have been abused as children, do also offer programmes of rehabilitation that probably have to be life long. Putting people in jail and throwing away the key is inhumane. Putting people in prison and allowing them to resume being mums again on their exit is downright foolhardy.

I just hope this country has all the human and other resources it needs to protect children properly and to try and train abusers out of their abusive ways. The judge could never get it right in this case. Who would want to be a judge in these kinds of cases at all?