Opinion: Children are paying for childcare suspicion

The impact on the lives of the workers, parents and children involved in the case is incalculable. The careers of some of the professionals who played a role are also in tatters. So too, the reputation of the legal system. That was tarnished when the pair's acquittal was widely assumed to have come about because of inadequacies in the criminal justice system, rather than because justice had been done.

Years after being found innocent, the two nursery workers faced further false accusations and public recriminations. Eventually they were forced to bring a libel case in order to clear their names.

But another casualty of the whole affair has been the credibility of the childcare system itself. Over a 10-year period, the case often made the headlines. Even this week, as the General Medical Council has been conducting an inquiry into the conduct of a paediatrician who was central to the case, it has surfaced yet again. Over the years, for every story accurately reporting the workers' innocence, there were numerous that assumed their guilt.