This is sad. Some ratbag by the name of Ronald Gander and his equally disgusting girlfriend (who is not named and does not seem to have been charged) lived in an expensive inner city apartment. They decided a teenage student living with them should prostitute herself to help pay the rent. She had run away from home, and they threatened to evict her if she did not produce sufficient income. She was not allowed to keep any of the money she made, and the only bonus or payment they gave her was an occasional box of chicken treats.

The sentence – two and a half years suspended after nine months, in other words, nine months in jail – seems woefully inadequate to me, especially considering Gander already had a criminal record and was on parole at the time. And what must the girl’s home life have been like if that kind of treatment was preferable?