The judge thanked Miss-Lemon-Face for her verdict, and she shot me the most satisfied, cat-that-got-the-cream look I’ve ever seen as she sat down. But I had to stay standing while the judge lectured me.

He said, ‘You’ve been found guilty of the charges against you. I’ll adjourn the sentencing hearing for three weeks. You’ll be held on remand, Ms Delaney, while I consider the appropriate sentence. You can take that as an indication of the way I’m leaning.’

I asked Barrett, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He said, ‘It means that the judge has decided that a custodial sentence is the way to go.’

I said, ‘I’m going back to prison?’

And Barrett said, ‘Yes.’

I have to tell you, Jack, I was surprised to hear it. I thought probation was what I’d get – probation and maybe a fine. People can laugh but I couldn’t see what anyone would gain from putting me in prison. Like I said at the outset, I’d never been in trouble with the police before they came to arrest me, and I obviously was never going to care for any children again. They could find some other bunny to do it.

It would cost the State a fortune to hold me in prison, and what would be the point of it? But that’s not the way things work. People wanted me punished – and punished hard – for what I was supposed to have done, and prison is how we punish people in the State of New South Wales. In that respect, it hasn’t changed much since the convict days.

People will tell you, maybe even with a straight face, that prison’s about rehabilitation, but, like I said when I first wrote to you, there’s no rehabilitation in prison. There are English lessons, but I speak English. They’ll help you sit the HSC, but I have my HSC. You get to use computers so you might one day be able to get a job, but I’ve never had any problem getting a job, so how was I going to be rehabilitated exactly?

What they wanted was to punish me. That’s what putting me in prison was all about.

So there I was, coming out of court with my hands in cuffs in front of my body, being led like a prize sow into a show ring, toward the police van, and I could hear people clapping, and one of the mothers of one of the children I’d been caring for shouted out, ‘I hope you rot in hell, Snow Delaney!’

I have to tell you, that made my blood boil. And people wonder why I fired Barrett ahead of the sentencing. It should be obvious!

Snow

Chapter Twenty-four

It’s against the law to take a camera or any other kind of recording device into court in New South Wales. You can take a pen and paper in, but that’s it, and I guess that’s one of the things that makes court-reporting feel so old-fashioned – that and the fact that you’ve got to bow to the judge if you want to leave the room, and everyone’s got to stand when he comes in to take his seat with that horsehair wig on his head.