SOMEWHERE, probably in England, but it could be anywhere in the English-speaking world, Maxine Carr has now started to try and rebuild her life. The perceived need for her to do so in secret reflects badly on a society that prides itself on its supposed fair-mindedness.

Here's how Maxine Carr should have begun the rest of her life after Soham. Released from prison she returns openly to her mother's home in Grimsby. First morning back she and mum go out shopping.

Of course there would be a media scrum. So be it. Maxine Carr carries on in similar vein. She leads the life she might have done had she simply left Ian Huntley and returned home. She does not give interviews or write a book, even for no fee.

Trying to get used to the public attention her appearance will draw for some time, she behaves as normally as possible. The media crowd will tire of trailing her. Goodwill for her as a ordinary young woman doing ordinary things (probably Maxine Carr's dream of heaven) will build up. Unlikely ever to offend again, she will probably become a better citizen than if her relationship with Huntley hadn't been severed by his ghastly killings.

Should the death threats to Carr have ruled out this scenario? I'm tempted to say no, but it's not my life that would be on the line. And a secret life for Carr would probably have been considered necessary even without murderous thugs in the offing. Which - let's not duck it - puts you and me, representing society as a whole, in the accusatory frame.

Perhaps, as a relic of the days when we lived in caves, and superstition reigned supreme, we seem to need hate figures, totems of evil in which to stick pins. With the passing of Myra Hindley, Maxine Carr can be pressed into the mould even though she shares nothing with Hindley except her sex and the first letter of her name. What the hell, bang her with phrases like "undeniably linked to the Soham murders'' (Soham's Methodist minister this week) or "who lied to protect the Soham murderer Ian Huntley'' (ITV recently, and inaccurately since Carr didn't know he was the murderer) and she'll fit to the general satisfaction.

Maxine Carr might not have served long in prison but, thanks to a misplaced desire for revenge, she now faces a life sentence of fear and misery. If she buckles under the pressure, we will have done to Carr something very nearly as bad - and certainly as shameful - as the crimes that have brought her her undeserved notoriety.

But if, years hence, we learn that Maxine Carr is doing well, has perhaps made a happy marriage and has kids of her own, that would be a victory for us as well as her. Though Maxine Carr is not a symbol, our treatment of her is. It can mirror the best in us, or the worst in us. And that choice is not somebody else's but yours and mine.

A PAMPHLET written by a Dr Digby Anderson, described as a "writer and thinker'', accuses us, in its title, of being All Oiks Now. What are oiks? Am I the only person who doesn't know