Just as long as you were drunk!!!

It was more than a year ago that the news media reported that a six-year-old girl, who is both blind and deaf, had been left overnight in near freezing temperatures, after a bonfire and fireworks display.  Her carer - who may, or may not, be her mother, had taken her there, with the child dressed only in socks and a dressing gown.  My immediate question, at the time, was "Why take a deaf, blind, child to such an event in the first case?"!

However, the woman then realised that she did not have her keys, and so left the child, unattended, while she went to her sister's home to obtain spare keys.  Being, apparently, under the influence of alcohol, she then fell asleep - with the child still strapped into a pram!

It was the next morning that a classroom assistant came to take the girl to school - and found her tipped over in the pram, shivering and with blue lips.  The fact that she had survived the night may be seen as something of a miracle.  She was later given hospital treatment for hypothermia, and bruising.

Today, the carer was admonished, and walked free from court - the sheriff having deferred sentence for almost a year in order that she might display good behaviour!  Her lawyer claimed that she is "entirely remorseful, ashamed, and embarrassed".  Unfortunately, the accompanying newspaper photograph shows someone who gives no appearance of displaying any of those feelings!

I know that I am taking the words out of context, but I could hear Jesus say, "I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these My brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help Me."  (Matt 25:45; NLT).  How sad that the courts should, in my opinion, take the maltreatment of an extremely vulnerable child so lightly.  Perhaps, in today's Scotland, drunkenness is now an acceptable excuse for any form of child abuse!