Readers of the Daily Echo in Bournemouth reacted with "unprecedented outrage" following the paper's coverage of a mother who walked free from court after glassing her 14-year-old son in the face.

The paper received more than 100 telephone calls and e-mails in the space of 24 hours last weekend in response to its front page lead on Saturday, August 21.

And after three days, the Daily Echo's phones were still buzzing as readers responded to the paper's call for reaction.

The story reported on the case of a 38-year-old woman who spent all day drinking before returning home and attacking her son.

The woman - who cannot be named, to protect the interests of the boy - was given a six-month community rehabilitation order after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

News editor Andy Martin said: "We have easily had 160 phone calls and about 10 or 20 e-mails. It's certainly one of the biggest telephone responses we have had.

"We expected a big response when we saw the story as we were all pretty shocked by it.

"We put a prompt on our front page and the phones have been ringing off the receiver. We had a page lead response story on Monday which spilled into Tuesday."

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