Dave, I showed my M your writing. Attuned as I am to her, even I was surprised by her reaction - she wept a river. She says you are a credit to your family for your decency and sensitivity. She's a bit busy as the moment (church fete season) but plans to register so she can say 'hi' to you.
Very good. It was as hard to write as it is to read.
Incidentally, the writing did extract from her the admission that she knows at some level that some parents do harm their children but this is usually owing to some sort of systemic failure (eg. parents lacking education or being social care cases themselves). She believes that the presumption should be that parents like Patsy don't harm their children even in a terrible accident and that the standard of proof must be much higher in cases where parents are suspected than in other cases. Unfortunately, there have been a couple of cases here in the last few cases where parents were convicted and the convictions were over-turned on appeal. This obviously tends to support her view although in one case, the police categorically refused to apologise for being wrong and my own gut feeling is that the parent was in fact guilty.
Sadly, Sophie, that viewpoint seems to have ruled the DA's office from Day One.