Because of the decline ofmarriage and breakdownof traditional sex roles, a far greater proportion of women are raising children while bearing the full burden of both commercial and domestic work.
Mr Chawla suggested that "in the latter period" of the fraud Pershad was "suffering from a depressive illness exacerbated by the breakdownof his marriage".
"It's a source ofmarriagebreakdown, of stress, of people being ill, being off work - the knock-on effect of people wrestling with unmanageable debt in their lives can be massive, " he says.