MAGICIAN David Payne this week started a 12 year prison sentence for raping an eight-year-old girl and abusing others.

Understandably, parents who have lived with the knowledge their little girls have been treated in this terrible way and then had to see them re-live their ordeal in court are disgusted.

Some would have liked to have seen Payne jailed for life or even executed.

But at least in the quiet hours of the early morning when their daughters wake with nightmares they will know that Payne is unlikely to be sleeping easily in his bed.

Prison inmates don't like child abusers and Payne will have to spend the whole of his sentence segregated on a special wing.

Even there he is unlikely to be safe. If the stories other prisoners tell are even half way true Payne will need more than his magic tricks to come out unscathed.

Few will cry any tears for Payne but all of us can feel great sympathy for his tiny victims and their parents, who probably feel a huge weight of guilt. If any lessons in security can be learned let's hope they are quickly taken on board.