THE grandparents of tragic Southampton toddler Jason Dorricott are appealing for the Home Secretary to intervene after the woman who admitted child cruelty charges against him escaped a jail sentence yesterday.

Distraught Jean and Mike Wheeler have written a lengthy letter to Jack Straw pleading with him to review the whole investigation and court case which followed Jason's death.

Jackie Ham, 35, formerly of William MacLeod Way, Millbrook, Southampton, was yesterday placed on probation for two years after admitting child cruelty against the two-year-old.

Mrs Wheeler said after the Winchester Crown Court case that she was "disgusted and saddened'' at the sentence.

Ham, an in-patient at the psychiatric unit at Royal South Hampshire Hospital in Southampton, will have to undergo further medical treatment before being discharged.

At the end of the recent cruelty trial of her lover, Jason's father Mark Dorricott, the jury learned that Jason had died after being in the couple's care. Mark Dorricott was cleared of all cruelty charges.

The toddler died in Southampton General Hospital on Nov-ember 10 last year, three days after being found unconscious at Ham's home.

In light of admissions by Ham that she had shaken Jason on November 7, and early post- mortem results, she was initially charged with murder.

But, following further medical investigations by 12 doctors, it could not be proved that Jason had died a violent death. The measured verdict of the doctors was that Jason probably suffered an epileptic fit and had suffered a lack of oxygen. The fatal swelling of the brain followed.

Even though there was evidence of recent and not so recent bleeding within the brain and 17 other external injuries to Jason's body, doctors were unable to state conclusively that the fit and his death must have been caused by the injury to his brain.

The murder charges against Ham were dropped and replaced with cruelty charges against the couple.

An independent inquiry into whether Southampton Social Services and the police could have done more to protect Jason, who had been placed and then taken off the at risk register, is currently under way.

A report is due to be published after Christmas.

Recorder Peter Towler told yesterday's court hearing he had to "disregard the wider context" of the case and had to sentence Ham on the two charges before him which she admitted - that on separate occasions she had smacked and punched the little boy.

He said it was neither necessary nor in the public interest to jail her for offences which he said showed totally unacceptable and heavy-handed behaviour but were at the "lower end of the scale of child cruelty". But Mrs Wheeler told the Daily Echo: "My grandson is lying up there in a tiny grave and no-one has been held even a little bit responsible for his death.

"I have written to Jack Straw and the Crown Prose-cution Service asking, if not demanding, for some intervention. No-one has been punished. "You can't call two years' probation punishment. "She admitted the charges - I think she should have received a prison sentence whether she is ill or not.

"The whole investigation has been flawed from day one. We are awaiting the outcome of an investigation by social services, but after the way things have gone for us I expect that will come up with nothing either."

A Home Office spokesman said any letter received by Jack Straw would receive due consideration.

Southampton Social Services declined to comment.

Mrs Wheeler added: "I just hope Jack Straw has some compassion and agrees to help us. We want justice for our Jason.''

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