This is soooo typical of the bloody Guardian/Observer

[moondog]

Moaning about the 'scandal' of children whose mothers are in gaol

Shouldn't they have thought of that before they actually got sent down? Why is it a 'scandal'? A grnadparent is complaining that 'without us, he'd be in care-it would be much more expensive if they were looking after him'

This is today's Britain-oine where al lresponsibility is relinquished to the state and one in which peopel are generally outraged if 'the State' doesn't do absoulutely everything for them.

I despair.

A lawyer is only as good as his or her instructions. If your client won't tell you that there are children at home, what are you supposed to do?

I haven't done criminal law for ages but I don't remember getting lots of uninterrupted quiet time for long conferences to ascertain all my clients' domestic circumstances.

I would have thought most of them would be quite keen to emphasise that they had child care responsibilities to try to mitigate any sentence but I think that someone has already made the point that there is a potential for people to deliberately lie once they know they have/are at risk of a custodial sentence, because they don't want social services getting involved.

So I think checking names/addresses of those getting CB is probably the only way.