How on earth do people imagine we equip children for life if we never show them the sorts of issues other people encounter, if we never talk through with them how they might deal with difficulty or violence or unexpected shocks and surprises?

There's this assumption that all children have the luxury of a childhood where their innocence is always respected and their main occupation is pleasant play - at the age of 18 or 21, they are then thrust into the real world and shown its uglier side, but not before.

Every now and again you encounter a case that sort of shocks you, in terms of the moral vacuum that exists among those who are perpetrating crimes, and this is clearly one of those.

I'm a very promiscuous reader. My dad's a big science fiction fan, so I'd read 'Dune,' and 'Watership Down' and 'The Lord Of The Rings.'

How different other families were, the shape of them, the things they presumed, the children that grew up in them.

I like when life is sort of spontaneous. I like the unexpected. I'm comfortable in that!