The news that Mary Bell, convicted of the murder of two young boys has been paid what is said to be a substantial sum of money for her co-operation on a book has raised, once more, the problem of paying convicted criminals to write their memoirs.The tradition of retired and semi-retired villains has been a long standing one throughout the last fifty years.

The line seems to stretch like Macbeth's -- Billy Hill, Jack Spot, Joe Cannon, John McVicar, "Mad Frank" Fraser, Bruce Reynolds, Freddie Foreman and other lesser alumni.

There have been pictures made of the exploits of the Krays and the Great Train Robbers.

Almost all have in some way benefited financially.

There has not really been a murmur of p rotest.

The Underworld generally played by itself and "innocent" people were rarely the subject of their attentions runs the argument.

This is not, of course true.

A number of innocent bank cashiers, messengers and security guards were certainly the subject of their attentions.The present sticking point seems to be the fact that Mary Bell actually killed two children.

No one would doubt the credibility of Gitta Sereny as an investigative journalist.

There is no suggestion that the book is exploitative.

It should make for most interesting sociological reading even if some of the other memoirs do not have the same academic content.Mr Jack Straw, the Home Secretary has said that he will introduce legislation to prevent this happening in the future.

The difficulty is that he is unlikely to be able to introduce legislation which will be enforceable.

It may be easy to say "Criminals must never benefit from books about their crimes" but in practice such a regulation would be impossible to police.

What crimes? Can they write about their experiences as a drug addict and shoplifter as a child but not as a bank robber and drug addict as a teenager? Can they write after the necessary period under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act has expired? Are criminal's relatives' never to be paid? That would then prevent the children who are victims receiving payment.

In any event with our laws of trusts here and off-shore, a system of payments can easily be devised.

The outcry may once again lead to yet more hurried and ill-thoughtout legislation, something which we can well do without.

Hard cases make bad laws.Curiously at present in New York Sammy Gravano, underboss to the Gotti regime, is being sued by relatives of his victims anxious to collect some of the proceeds from his best selling memoirs.

Perhaps the best thing the relatives of the victims can do is to seek to attach any earnings Mary Bell and others may stand to receive from books about them before they receive them.There remains the question of the injunctions in force to protect not Mary Bell but her daughter.

Again done with the best motives the result seems to ensure that Ms Bell can profit from her anonymity if she wishes but not if she does not so wish.

It is curious which children are protected and which are not.

For example, an infant whose father was jailed for sending the tot on a railway journey was named.

Surely that child should have been protected.

The child allegedly injured by the nanny was not named until after its death.

Children whose names are splashed across the papers when missing become anonymous when their captor is charged.

Yet those who live in the locality of the victim will most probably know all about the case anyway, reporting or not.

Their schoolfellows will certainly know.

It is perhaps time for a serious look at the whole question of the protection of children from the press.