But I really couldn't care less that he was pictured walking in a park while failing to hurt any children.
I'm quite pleased, on balance, that he was seen looking in a recruitment agency window advertising jobs, because if he is released I'd far rather he was working than claiming benefits.
If the justice system decided to let him out after only two years of what was supposed to be a three year sentence for his role in the death and abuse of Baby P - which was largely carried out by his brother Steven Barker - there's no reason to whip up a public storm every time he leaves the bail hostel to buy some fags. It's not his fault he's out.
It's the fault of someone else. Probably someone who drives a desk in the Probation Service who thinks they know better than the judge who heard the evidence, or a prison officer who wrote a report saying he'd been well-behaved. And more than likely, the politicians who frequently promise to be tough on crime and then because we've no damn cash and the cells are needed for teenage rioters who nicked a £149.99 telly and got a lot of Press coverage let nasty bastards out early because it's easier than fixing the system.
Someone who watched or encouraged a terrible man abusing children should be locked up for a good 10 years. Someone who actually did it should be forced to clean sewers and eat rats for the rest of their lives, every day of which should be made as miserable as hell. But it's the fault of someone else that the tariff for Owen's incarceration was set at just three years, that he was let out after two, and that he will probably use free lawyers to claim he's now being harassed by the Press.
Harass this man instead, doorstep him, shove pictures of Baby P in his face and ask him to explain why baby-killers get out early and 18-year-old riot rubber-neckers get six months for nicking chewing gum.
"Um..."
