no words

I'm still just bloging via an old v. slow modem while I wait for my ADSL line to be switched on at my new house, too slow to browse properly but had to comment on this recent story.

It's not every day that you hear a story that leaves a lump in your throat. What do YOU think the sentence should have been ?

Babysitters jailed for baby rape

Alan Webster had a "malign influence" over Tanya French

Two babysitters have been jailed for raping a 12-week-old baby girl and taking pictures of the abuse.

Alan Webster, 40, and his girlfriend Tanya French, 19, both from Hatfield in Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to rape and making indecent images.

Webster was given a life sentence at St Albans Crown Court; French was jailed for five years.

International law enforcers alerted police after Webster downloaded 7,000 indecent images from the internet.

There are no words to express the abhorrence such offending generates Judge Findlay Baker

The baby's mother was unaware of the abuse until detectives visited her home after finding photographs detailing the abuse at Webster's home.

Sentencing Webster, Judge Findlay Baker said the offences were committed against the "most vulnerable victim - a little baby".

"There are no words to express the abhorrence such offending generates," he added.

'Malign influence'

Sentencing French, he said: "You did not shrink away from the acts in which you joined, but looked forward to them."

But he said French was also a victim and had come under Webster's "malign influence" and was to some extent "corrupted by him".

French admitted four charges of rape, five indecent assaults, two charges of permitting indecent images to be taken of children and two counts of making indecent images of the child in February and March 2004.

Webster admitted one charge of rape, four indecent assaults, two charges of permitting indecent images to be taken of children and two counts of making indecent images of children.

Webster also admitted a separate charge of indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl and seven offences of possessing child abuse images.

link to story here