I'm not given to violent outbursts, but I reckon child sex abusers should be nailed to a gantry by the left testicle and left to dangle.

I'm going to tell you a story. It's a true and shocking story.

It's the story of a young couple I once knew, a happy couple, as happiness goes these days, and as a logical progression they had a baby.

That's when their heaven shattered and came crashing down to earth in great, jagged shards.

They had a baby girl, a beautiful little girl, and one day the young mum blurted to her partner: "You won't touch her, will you?"

He asked what she meant. "You know, you won't TOUCH her, will you?"

Over the coming weeks, she admitted to him that she had been seriously sexually abused as a child by her father, and she did not want that to happen to her daughter. No one knew but her father, herself, and now her partner.

She had periods of deep depression and sought help from a counsellor. She was advised to get it off her chest, to confront her father and stop blaming herself.

She did confront him, and asked him why, how could he, his own daughter? His cowardly response was: "Well, it's all right, I'm not your father. I'm only your stepfather." Some excuse.

Once again, her world collapsed. Her "father" went on to say that he had met and married her mother when she had a small baby and they decided to tell the child she was his.

She poured it all out to her mother, the whole story. Her mother screamed, shouted, called her a liar, would not believe a word.

The mother confronted her husband and he denied it all. She disowned her daughter, but eventually the truth came out, and the stepfather had to admit he had abused the girl when she was a child. His wife threw him out of the house.

Months passed and the young woman, now a mother herself, wanted to know more about her real father, she wanted to meet him.

Now reconciled with her mother, they decided to track him down together. They found him living in another part of Yorkshire and he welcomed them both with open arms.

He welcomed the mother with even more open arms because soon they started an affair, even though he was already in a relationship.

The young woman visited her father and spent weekends with him. But he was merely her biological father, there was no relationship, no real love.

The bizarre affair between mother and father cooled and ended. The girl's visits to her father grew more infrequent and stopped altogether.

Meanwhile, her own relationship with her partner began to deteriorate. She had severe mood swings, bouts of depression, she began hurting herself, scratching herself with sharp objects.

She sought medical advice and decided her salvation lay in punishing the man who had done this to her.

Back at home, things were getting worse. Constant arguments, fights, the couple separated and got back together again, separated and got back together.

She went to the police and laid a complaint against her disgusting wretch of a stepfather. He was arrested and charged. She was warned she might have to suffer the agony of standing up in court and telling, in public, the story of what had happened to her all those years ago and how it had screwed up her life.

If he pleaded guilty, she would not have to tell the story, the evidence would be read out in court. He did admit the charges and saved her the ordeal of standing in the witness box.

The law protected her from the indignity of being named in newspaper reports.

The man was jailed for several years, too few years, because her suffering continues and probably will for the rest of her life.

She and her partner are separated, have been for some time. He, although scarred by the former relationship, is happy with a new partner. She, his ex, is still blaming herself, still physically hurting herself, drifting from one relationship to another in which she is normally subjected to violence.

And what of their little girl? She is a surprisingly happy little thing and looks forward to long stays with her dad.

I said it was a shocking story, of forbidden lust and lives wrecked.

That's why I stick to my conviction about nails, testicles and gantries. Or is that too good for these people?

Updated: 09:35 Tuesday, April 29, 2003