IT IS perhaps the most horrifying and heart rending of all crimes. The killing of a child, the tearing away from a family of its most precious gift, leaves a wound which never really heals.
And as well as the personal tragedy for the family involved, such an attack on youth and innocence leaves a deep impression on the national consciousness.
Yesterday's atrocity adds to the long list of tragic child killings. The names of the victims are indelibly imprinted on our memories, names such as two year old James Bulger, battered to death by two 11 year olds on Merseyside, and Nicola Conroy (12) stabbed to death in front of her classmates at her Middlesbrough school.
The killers' motives are complex and varied but they come to share a common notoriety: nurse Beverly Allitt, who killed four children she was caring for at a Lincolnshire hospital; Robert Black, given 10 life sentences for murdering three schoolgirls in the 1980s; and the most notorious of all the child killers, the Moors murderers, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.
However disturbing an individual killing may be, the statistics indicate that the killing of children is not a growing problem in Britain. The statistics remained roughly stable between 1983 and 1993, with an average of 86.4 child homicides a year.
The figures cover the murders and manslaughter of boys and girls under 16, as well as infanticides, in England and Wales.
The highest total during that 10 year period, 102, was recorded in 1985, with a "low" of 60 coming the following year, 1986.
In 1993 - the last year for which the Home Office has complete figures - the total was 73, one less than the total of 74 recorded 10 years earlier.
Whatever the circumstances of the killing, the impact on the child's fantily is invariably devastating. Parents tend to turn in the first instance to family and friends for support, but later many feel the need to talk about their loss with people who have endured similar experiences.
Ms Denise Watson, spokeswoman for the Bristol based self help group Compassionate Friends, which helps bereaved parents come to terms with the loss of children from murder, suicide, accidents and disease, explained some of the particular pressures suffered by the parents.
"It's a brutally sudden way to lose a child. You're totally numb in the early weeks after it happens but you still have to get on with things like arranging a funeral. At the same time there is also the sensationalist aspect of the death. You have the intrusion to cope with, the interest of the press and television and then the very public inquest," explained Ms Watson.
The search for the culprit poses particular problems. "The parents face a very long ordeal. There's the question of bringing the perpetrator of the crime to justice and it's a dreadful period before the offender is apprehended.