It is a worrying statistic that the number of children put under child protection in the Bradford district has increased by 45 per cent over the past two years.

Even sadder is the fact that while the figure of children subject to such measures by Bradford Council is at the highest it has been since 2011, the number of young people being released from such protective status is, over the same period, at an all time low.

Perhaps the rise can be attributed to the local authority taking a more efficient line in identifying and dealing with children considered at risk. While that is, of course, commendable, it does not take away from the fact that there are so many young people in need of such drastic intervention.

The children who are placed under these protective orders have suffered sexual assaults, neglect, or emotional traumas, and that is a terrible catalogue of shameful abuse which no child, whoever they are, should be subjected to.

The figures are, of course, all the more harrowing in the light of the recent shocking revelations about the distressingly short and neglect-filled life of Hamzah Khan, who died aged just four years old in Bradford after being slowly starved to death. His mother Amanda Hutton was jailed for 15 years for manslaughter last month.

Every time such a terrible case comes to court we are told that lessons have been learned and procedures are in place to stop it ever happening again. With the rising numbers needing protective measures we can only hope the sentence handed to Hutton will serve as a salutary warning to those who seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to cause such suffering to children.