MADAM – Judge Jamie Tabor QC has sent the parents of ill-treated and neglected children (SNJ June 18) to prison for two years.

He says this case was not “deliberate cruelty”, although he also says it was “wilful neglect”.

What are our prisons for? Are they there so that we can show our revulsion of the “inadequate, stupid and stubborn,” as Judge Tabor described these parents?

I am sure no good can come from the imprisonment of these unhappy, disabled people (which incidentally will cost tax payers around £160,000).

It will not heal the scars the children have already suffered for life.

These scars are likely to be made worse by separation from their parents.

It will not help the parents to treat better any children they may have in two years’ time to replace those that have been taken away from them.

Is it simply to assuage society’s horror that we have allowed this to happen in 2014? The serious case review which may prevent such tragedies from happening again could have taken place without the imprisonment of the parents.

I am left saddened by Judge Tabor’s decision, taken on behalf of us all.

Mary Brown

Stroud