From bad to worse...

I don't know which aspect of this case depresses me more; the fact that a fifteen-year-old mother was attacked in a busy, well lit Lancashire street by a gang of at least six other girls, or that at the time of the attack, the victim was pushing her 14 month-old child in its pram.

Because on any reading of the victim's situation, she must have given birth aged fourteen and given the human gestation period, it is entirely possible - indeed probable - that her child was conceived when she was only thirteen years old.

As a nation, we are surely going to Hell in a handcart; God help us.