THERE is a disturbing air of resignation over the risk to children inside a former old people's home, vandalised so often that it is strewn with broken glass, wrecked furniture and even drugs and personal files.

It is one of apparent surrender -- suggesting that the youngsters cannot be stopped.

It may be that the situation at the former St Emmanuel's Residential Home in Blackburn is complicated by the business having plunged into financial trouble and that, now, charge of the property is in diverse hands -- a bank, a firm of receivers, an estate agent handling its sale and security firm employed by them.

But that does not diminish the necessity for it being made and kept secure. Since the home closed in February, the security firm and the estate agents have been called out 18 times because of break-ins. Residents nearby say that children as young as four are in the place every night.

The security firm reports that each time they seal up the building, the youngsters find a new way of getting inside. And the receivers say that determined children cannot be stopped unless there is a round-the-clock guard.

But though the cost of making the premises completely secure -- either by bricking up the windows or having security guards on 24-hour duty -- may be prohibitive, just as forbidding is the risk of a young child being seriously hurt or even killed.

The situation needs putting right -- at once.