Let’s look at the statistics. Child abduction is not completely unheard of in Britain. The official figures suggest that 569 cases in England and Wales were reported to the police last year, an increase on the 513 the year before but far less than the 1,035 reported a decade ago. There are 11 million or so children under the age of 16, so there is about a 0.005 per cent chance that one of my children could be snatched. And, to be fair, studies show that adults known to the child are about half as likely to snatch them as strangers. CEOPS, the agency that tries to protect children, estimates that 17 per cent of child abduction cases are the parents themselves. So, there is a 0.0009 per cent chance my wife could whisk the toddler off and hole him up in the Ecuadorean embassy.