"Now pass the blame and don't blame me...."

There have been all too many cases of bad parenting highlighted in the media recently, but this one has to be plumbing new depths.

A father of four, who blamed the theft of expensive designer handbags on his two-year-old daughter, has avoided prison.

The thief made regular visits to a house his wife had been hired to look after while the owner was abroad and, over a period of five months, helped himself to £10,000 worth of clothes, shoes and accessories.

When the theft was discovered, this noble specimen of humanity produced what must surely be one of the most memorable excuses ever, claiming that his two-year-old daughter had stolen the lot.

To support his statement, he even returned some of the handbags with sweet wrappers and dummies in them, suggesting that they had been 'borrowed' for dressing up games.

Unfortunately for him, the police remained unconvinced, possibly because the rest of the missing items had already been put up for sale on ebay; today's children may be frighteningly computer-literate but there are limits.

Interestingly, the report makes no mention of the wife's role in all this, which could mean that she is to stand trial separately - in any case, I doubt anyone will knowingly trust her again. Either she's a wrong 'un too, or her powers of observation are as weak as her judgement of character.

Whichever it is, I'm afraid it's a poor lookout for the offspring of such a union.