The mother of one of two girls who drowned in the River Wharfe spoke today about her devastation at a decision not to challenge the sentence which allowed the woman convicted over the deaths to walk free.

And Joanne Shaw, whose eight-year-old daughter Jasmin Neville died with her friend Charlea Fox during the 1997 tragedy near Otley, told how the case has affected her life.

Mrs Shaw asked the Crown Prosecution Service to lodge an appeal against the suspended jail term handed down to Wendy Dodd but it has now said it will not be taking the matter further.

In July, Dodd - who had admitted cruelty by wilfully neglecting each child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury - walked free from Sheffield Crown Court after Mr Justice Poole imposed a 15-month sentence which he suspended for two years because of her severe mental problems.

He said Dodd had suffered severe stress after the tragedy and feared she would take her own life if jailed.

The judge had heard that the girls, who were celebrating Charlea's eighth birthday at a riverside party at Arthington, were left with Dodd while the other adults in the party went to get drugs.

The prosecution said she had been "the worse for drink and cannabis'' and the girls died after going to play Baywatch in the water.

A CPS spokesman said: "We have taken instruction from counsel as to whether we should appeal on the grounds of the sentence being unduly lenient and they have advised us we can't. We have written to the family and told them we don't propose to pursue it.''

Mrs Shaw, 32, who lives in Otley with her partner Robert Fitzgerald, said she was bitterly disappointed by the decision. She believed Dodd should have served a custodial sentence.

Following the court case, she indicated she was considering seeking legal advice over the possibility of suing Dodd but now says she cannot face any more proceedings and wants to get on with her life.

Mrs Shaw, who was at home at the time of the tragedy, said: "She's got away with being responsible for my daughter's death.

"I think it's so obvious to everyone apart from the legal people that she should have gone to jail, but all they seemed to be interested in was what she'd been through. I'll never understand the judge's point of view.

" We'll have to live with this every day for the rest of our lives and I could have committed suicide by now and nobody would have batted an eye-lid.

"I had to give up my university course - I couldn't go back after what happened - and we were going to get married in the August after it happened but put that off as well.''

But Mrs Shaw, who has a seven-month-old son, Joseph, and is expecting another baby early next year, added: "I don't think there's anything else we can do now. We've just got to live with it."

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