Although Carol's husband admitted to his defence team that he - and he alone - had perpetrated this awful deed, they allowed her to be convicted alongside him.

Carol Hanson's appeal was rejected by Judge Widgery, who argued that she had been "unlucky". It was no longer a matter of the facts of the case, he said. It was a matter of law.

Which only goes to add more weight to the opinion put forward by Dicken's Mr Bumble: The law is an ass.

Carol Hanson committed suicide by drowning in Cookham Wood prison, Kent, on 2nd May 1997, after spending more than a quarter of a century in jail.

We would refer readers to an article by Simon Regan on the case. If you only ever read one article on miscarriages of justice, this eloquent and incisive piece of prose should be it.