Carr has been sentenced to a three-year community rehabilitation order, and not to the further prison sentence that some people expected. She will still be released at the end of the week, although the course her life might now take is anyone's guess.Mr Hubbard, once more, was eloquent in expressing what may lie ahead for Carr. "It is difficult to think of a more wretched creature, blighted, daunted, restricted, always looking over her shoulder." He said the relentless press interest served only to "stoke up the fires of public indignation", and added: "When I say that, I offer no word of comfort to her for what she did, but the penalty has now been paid for that. She has but one plea for Your Honour, that she may be left in peace to recreate, in herself, a new heart and that she may be free to live her life again."Oddly enough, though, my suspicion is that this latest phalanx of convictions, far from being a malicious attempt to punish Carr further, was actually, despite appearances, a rather fiendishly clever attempt to protect her. When it was first announced that these charges were being pursued, I was horrified. I, like Mr Hubbard, felt that the Home Office was simply reacting to the worst sort of popular-press-led public opinion, by pursuing Carr unfairly.The day she was formally charged, though, I realised that, for the first time in many, many weeks, there would not be a lurid splash about Maxine Carr in the Sunday red-tops.

Sympathetic sources inside Holloway Prison had been concerned for months about how depressing and debilitating Carr had been finding the drip-drip of nasty stories about her.The constant attention, designed to show her in the worst possible light, and to stoke up a mob mentality of hatred and anger, made the possibility of her uneventful release all but impossible. This vulnerable prisoner, who has been in the hospital wings of the prisons she has served her sentence in throughout, was so relentlessly vilified by the popular press that the coverage itself had become a feature of her punishment.But after her commitment to trial, and for quite some weeks, Carr and her activities could not be reported. Red-top tales about Maxine, all of a sudden, were in contempt of court. The result has been that she has been moved to an open prison, Foston Hall, in preparation for her release, with a bit of respite from the gaze of the press.Further, as long as the complaints that had been made against Carr by the various agencies involved had not been dealt with, the popular press was free to make trouble about these as well.

But [our] journalists don't know if the president is an alcoholic or if the alcohol he drinks affects his capacity to work. There's a group of journalists in Brasilia who joke about it and that's about it."According to Mr Dines, The New York Times's story also suffered from weak sourcing and relied heavily on a former political ally who is now an enemy of the president and on two columnists known for their strong opinions.In the daily newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo , columnist Vinicus Torres Freire said in an editorial that the New York newspaper's report was based on gossip "Lula drinks and smokes... Both friends and critics of President Silva were surprised over the report, which generated front-page headlines in Brazil.Alberto Dines, editor of the media-watching website and TV show Observatorio da Imprensa, said: "In purely technical terms, the article had serious flaws Lula's drinking is not a national concern Most people don't even think about it. Brazilians are surprised and upset by a claim in an American newspaper that President Luiz In?o Lula da Silva has a drinking problem. The report, which appeared in the Sunday edition of The New York Times , proclaimed: "Brazilian leader's tippling becomes national concern."President Silva's spokesman Andr?inger said Brazil asked its ambassador to transmit to the publication in question its indignation and surprise over the gratuitous insults aimed at the president, whose social habits he described as moderate.Brazil's vice president, Jos?lencar, said he was revolted by the story. Cocoa currently sells for more than $1 a pound, its highest level in 17 years.. On top of that, the world's leading producer of vanilla, Madagascar, has been assailed by cyclones that have wreaked havoc on the annual crop and pushed the price of vanilla syrup from $75 (£43) per gallon to as much as $800 per gallon.Cocoa, meanwhile, has been held hostage to the political unrest in Ivory Coast, which grows roughly 40 per cent of the world's crop and in effect controls global prices.