Dutroux, Belgium's public enemy number one without equal, has been incarcerated since 1996 and yet still there is no trial date. It might be this year it might be next - who can say, officials shrug.

His alleged crimes brought 350,000 people onto the streets of Brussels in 1996, the largest public march of its kind in this small country's history and yet still nothing has been done.

The entire criminal justice and police system have been shaken up and reformed in the wake of revelations about the hideously incompetent way in which his case has been handled and yet still there is no movement.

The Dutroux affair is a scar on Belgium's national conscience which grows deeper each year. There is no other single event, bar the second world war, which has had such a traumatic and damaging effect to the country's self-image. So why the delay?

The charge sheet against Dutroux, formerly an electrician, could not be more serious. He is said to have kidnapped and abused six girls aged between eight and 19 and killed four of them. He is also alleged to have murdered an accomplice.

But what is worse for many is the sadism and sheer cruelty which appears to have characterised his captives' last days. Two of his alleged victims - Melissa Russo and Julie Lejeune, both eight - were sexually abused and tortured in makeshift dungeons in metal cages in his basement. Their bodies were later found in his back garden in southern Belgium. They had starved to death while Dutroux did a short stint in jail for theft.

Two other girls - An Marchal, 17 and Eefje Lambrecks, 19 - also met their end in his custody and their decomposed corpses were discovered in another of his houses. Laetitia Delhez, who was then 14 and is now a supermarket checkout girl, and Sabine Dardenne, managed to escape with their lives but will never be the same again.

In a recent interview Ms Delhez said she felt abandoned by the authorities and deprived of support and even basic information about the case against her former captor. But still the authorities dither.

Meanwhile Dutroux, who inhabits cell 801 in Arlon prison and is watched night and day, seems to be sneering at his victims. This week he was, not for the first time, front-page news and for all the wrong reasons.

A Belgian senator connived with a Flemish journalist to give Dutroux airtime and the reporter, disguised as the politician's chauffeur, smuggled himself into his cell and conducted an interview.

The senator is in hot water, the journalist may lose his job and the general public at large is once again traumatised by events which took place six or even seven years ago. Plus ça change.

Dutroux thrives on controversy but the fiasco did serve one useful purpose - it reminded people, if they needed it, that justice has yet to be done. It also exposed serious shortcomings in security for a man who is supposed to be Belgium's most dangerous convict and many politicians are calling for the head of the country's justice minister.

But the Dutroux case is littered with bungling and unacceptable incompetence, so what difference will one more cock-up make? He was known to the police for years before he was finally arrested in 1996. He had been released from prison in 1991 after serving three-and-a-half years of a 13-year sentence for multiple child rape.

When he was set free he was given a GBP 1,400 a month invalid's pension. Unbelievably, police also searched his house when Julie and Melissa were cowering in cages in his basement but failed to find them. They heard screaming but chose to believe Dutroux, who told them it must have been children playing outside.

And, to add insult to injury, Dutroux briefly escaped in 1998 making a mockery of the police and prompting a wave of government resignations. Paradoxically he has also come close to being released because of the length of time it has taken to mount a case against him, a delay which his lawyers argued breached the European convention on human rights.

The authorities were only able to circumvent this problem by convicting him for his abortive escape bid. And the closest he has come to a court case is one he mounted himself - to protest against his conditions in prison. So what an earth, you may well ask, is going on?

The victims' parents think they have an answer - a cover-up and many Belgians agree with them. Dutroux was not acting alone, they say, but was part of a wider paedophile ring which included policemen and senior members of the establishment. Why else would there be such a delay in going to trial?

This week Dutroux himself said as much although possibly for his own reasons. "A network with all kinds of criminal activities really does exist," he told VTM, a Flemish TV station. "But the authorities don't want to look into it." And there is no doubting that things do look odd.

The original investigating magistrate was dismissed after sharing a meal with one of the victim's families and several prosecutors, policemen and crucial witness have committed suicide. Important evidence has also disappeared.

So maybe Dutroux is being protected from on high. What other explanation can there be for such a disgraceful chain of events? But one thing is certain - the entire credibility of the current reformist government of Guy Verhofstadt and Belgium's very reputation as a normal civilised country is on the line. Further delay is unacceptable.