The ban on recording devices means that court staff have got used to setting some seats aside for the media. They’re a bit different from normal seats in that they’ve got a little wooden desk that folds up when you want to get up, and folds down when you want to scribble in your notebook.

Most of them were already taken by the time I arrived to see Snow Delaney get sent to prison in May 2011, but I managed to squeeze into the last one in the row. This was before I’d heard from Snow, remember. The story that prompted her to write to me – ‘Secrets of Snow’ – wouldn’t be published until a week after she was sent away.

The sentencing judge was Samuel Hulme. I could summarise his address for you, but I think it’s better that people read it for themselves. He said:

Snow Delaney, please stand.

You have been found guilty of acts which together add up to an unspeakable cruelty.

You volunteered to care for the community’s most vulnerable children and you betrayed the trust that was placed in you.

You cut through the nerves in their hands to avoid having to massage them.

You used a barbaric, near-medieval method to sever the tips of their tongues.

You denied them access to basic health services. You restrained them on beds for hours, indeed weeks, on end. You kept the door to their bedroom locked at all times. You restricted them to diets delivered only by feeding tube. You forced them to wear heavy collars with not names but numbers attached to them.

Your level of actual care for them extended to turning their bodies to ensure they did not develop pressure sores. Occasionally, you sponged them down.

There is no evidence you showed them any compassion or human kindness. Your motive, it seems, in taking them in was not to make a contribution to society, to ease their suffering, but to make money.

Questions must be asked about the Department’s failure to detect your abuse of the children they placed in your care. How is it that you were able to take in so many children? How can it be that no inspections of any kind were ever done?

The only answer I can fathom is that, as a community, we are failing to take proper care of the children who need us most.

And here now is the worst of it: you, Snow Delaney, are a registered nurse, and nursing is a magnificent profession. Men and woman with your skills and training have for hundreds of years placed great pride in their ability to relieve the suffering of those most in need. It is not for nothing that nurses were once known as the Sisters of Mercy.

How badly you have betrayed those who share your calling, Ms Delaney. How badly you have betrayed us all.

I was sitting and listening and taking it all down in my lousy shorthand, waiting for the bit that everyone wanted to know: how much would she get? It’s no big secret any more. Justice Hulme gave her twelve years, with an eight-year minimum.