APPEARING on Christmas Eve, with double its usual shelf life, this column was meant to have a Christmas theme.

One that would suit what we laughingly call the "seasonal festivities'' - today the panic last-minute shopping and gift-wrapping, tomorrow the fraught preparation of the Big Christmas dinner and the torpor, mental and physical, that follows.

With the aid of Charles Dickens - who else? - I had a topic ready to unroll: how our lives are spaced out by Christmases. But it will have to wait. For a much more serious subject demands immediate attention: Maxine Carr.

The demonising of this young woman brings shame upon us all. Branding her the new Myra Hindley is a travesty so far from the almost-certain truth that it would be unbelievable if it didn't confirm just how easily our worst and basest instincts are aroused.

Nothing that has emerged about Carr suggests she is other than an unexceptional member of her generation. She likes kids and wanted to work with them. She enjoyed her Soham home. But she also liked to return to her home town and go shopping with Mum and see old friends. She also liked a bit of clubbing. And so what if she smooched with someone who wasn't her regular boyfriend? Any weekend in Newcastle's Bigg Market there are probably dozens doing the same. And none is closer than light years to Myra Hindley.

After the five-week Soham trial, the jury decided, rightly in my view, that Carr didn't know Huntley had murdered the girls when she told or maintained her lie. The tape of her distraught, still-disbelieving reaction when presented with the evidence has the stamp of honesty all over it.

Yes, she told a lie. A big lie. In the context of the abduction of two young girls it was unforgivable. But she told it in the belief that the abductor would be caught and her lie wouldn't matter. Yet, everyday people give false alibis to the police for people whom they know are guilty. If the criminal is caught, this subsidiary offence is usually ignored. But the enormity of Soham virtually demanded that Carr face justice.

But there is no good reason why, when she has served her sentence, she should not live openly in Grimsby or anywhere she chooses. Any decent community would want to help Maxine Carr rebuild her life and regain the respect of society.

Those now getting worked up over reports of the cost of protecting her might reflect that all it takes to avoid any expense is to accept Carr back.

Carr is properly seen as someone who made a big mistake for which she has already paid a heavy penalty. Of course, the main victims of Soham are the murdered girls and their parents. But Maxine Carr, too, is a victim, not a perpetrator, of the crime. Very probably she will never tell a lie again. How many of the rest of us - holier-than-thous who perhaps need to examine our consciences - can confidently state that of ourselves?

The vilification of Maxine Carr makes her a strong candidate for suicide. If she takes her own life, a needless tragedy will be added to Soham's dreadful toll.

And who will be to blame? We will.

Merry Christmas.