It’s an old adage that you should never judge anyone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

After reporting on so many cases at Worcester Crown Court I find it increasingly difficult to remain faithful to so noble a principle. In the the real world such ideals endure about as well as a house of cards in a hurricane.

Life can be incredibly hard but few of the problems defendants suffer can justify the savagery the worst of them exhibit. The excuses seem even more insidious when they proceed so silkily from the mouths of silver-tongued barristers.

But depression, anxiety, bereavement, physical illness, addiction, marital breakdown are problems the rest of us may well have encountered without feeling the need to break the law in so horrific a fashion. It's hard to keep faith with humanity while a woman recounts the effects of being beaten so badly that her face breaks off the rest of her skull.

I’ve looked murderers in the eye trying to find in them some glimmer of humanity or some dim flicker of remorse and come away chilled to the marrow.

But the worst cases of all are those that involve the sexual abuse of children.

The details of some of these cases are particularly harrowing and will haunt me until the end of my days. What many readers will not appreciate is the arrogance and lack of empathy displayed by some defendants, many of whom see themselves as the victims or are in denial about what they've done. The worst of them ring up our office demanding a story be removed from our website, claiming their privacy had been invaded.

One man convicted of a savage physical attack on his girlfriend complained he had been attacked by a man who had read the report in the Worcester News. Did he expect me to feel sorry for him? The family of a paedophile who abused his own daughter consistently tried to intimidate me during a trial.

A drugs conspirator blamed my court reports on his daughter getting bullied at school.

So, nothing to do with him at all then. But it's worth weathering all this verbal abuse to keep our readers in the picture. If there's a paedophile or a burglar living next door to you I want you to know about it. It's a duty and a privilege.