Should the new crimes of Jamie Bulger's killer be divulged?

[Andrew Curnow]

Slightly at a tangent, but I notice that the 'stock' photo now being used for Jon Venables is of him stood by the height chart at the police station. Previously (unless I'm mis-remembering, in which case apologies) the picture used was, I guess, his proper school photograph, with a very big grin which did, dare I say, make him look a bit nasty. Whereas the 'new' photo is a somewhat baffled little boy of not even five feet in height. It's an interesting change I think, as the two pictures elicit very different reactions.

[Larry]

England's children's commissioner Maggie Atkinson had told the Times that most criminals under 12 did not fully understand their actions.
But the Ministry of Justice said those over 10 knew the difference "between bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing".

Dr Atkinson said James Bulger's killers should have been helped to change their lives and not tried in an adult court.
She also said civilised society should recognise that children who commit offences needed to be treated differently from adult criminals.

She later issued a statement in which she said she wished to put into context her views on "such terrible atrocities" as James Bulger's killers and two young brothers who tortured other children in Edlington.
Dr Atkinson said in the statement that such children were "a danger to themselves and to others" and that they should be contained in secure settings.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8565619.stm

[

for a woman in such an important position her stupidity and
naivety is staggering if she really believes a 10 year old child dose not know its wrong to beat to death a toddler.As for treating children differently well Isuppose she's one of these softly softly people who believes a child who tourtures and savagly beats up another child should be rewarded with a play station.

[MinaHarker]

I agree with you Larry.

However:

Calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 have been rejected by the government.

England's children's commissioner Maggie Atkinson had told the Times that most criminals under 12 did not fully understand their actions.

But the Ministry of Justice said those over 10 knew the difference "between bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8565619.stm

[Lissa]

for a woman in such an important position her stupidity and
naivety is staggering if she really believes a 10 year old child dose not know its wrong to beat to death a toddler.As for treating children differently well Isuppose she's one of these softly softly people who believes a child who tourtures and savagly beats up another child should be rewarded with a play station.

She wasn't suggesting children who kill people should be given Playstations and I doubt there are many, even at the most extremely end of the woolly liberal persuasion (if one can have an extreme liberal), who would object to children who commit crimes being punished for those crimes. She was simply suggesting that 10 year olds shouldn't necessarily be tried and sentenced as if they were adults just because their crimes appalled the nation.

We as a society treat children differently to adults because children are not the same as adults. If a 10 year old picked up a toy they fancied and walked out of a shop with it, would you want that 10 year old to be tried for shoplifting as an adult would be? Probably not. Would you let a 10 year old drive a car on the roads even if they (for example) grew up on a farm and had learned to drive a tractor when they were tiny? Should 10 year olds be allowed to vote if they can draw a cross in a box? No - because they're children and we've decided that children are not capable of understanding things in the same way we understand things. To expect a 10 year old to understand malice aforethought and to commit the legal crime of murder and then be tried in an adult court doesn't make sense.

Of course they should've been tried and punished if found guilty but they aren't adults and in almost any other circumstance you can think of we wouldn't treat them as adults so why do we treat them as adults here?

[Jason Thompson]

To expect a 10 year old to understand malice aforethought and to commit the legal crime of murder and then be tried in an adult court doesn't make sense.

I cannot accept that the circumstances of the James Bulger case can ever be considered to have been carried out by anyone who did not know what they were doing was wrong. These children stole things they later used to kill Bulger. They carefully selected him from a crowd and picked him out and led him away when he was vulnerable. They took him to a location where they proceeded to inflict horrific torture on him (spraying paint in his face, among other things) and beat him to death. He was two years old, and must have shown clear signs of distress, and yet they carried on until he was dead. They then tried to cover this up by leaving his body on the rails so a train would hit it and people would think he was killed accidentally by a passing train.

If that does not demonstrate 'malice aforethought' then I don't know what does. This was not a childish game that went awry. This was not an accident. This was clearly premeditated.

Of course they should've been tried and punished if found guilty but they aren't adults and in almost any other circumstance you can think of we wouldn't treat them as adults so why do we treat them as adults here?

Because frankly there is no way they could have not known that they were doing something apalling. There just is no way to compare what they did to anything other than an adult crime. A child walking out of a store with a toy just isn't in the same leage as torturing and killing a 2 year old. I just don't see that it is feasible to assume that anyone below a certain age cannot understand what they are doing. People just don't fit into boxes like that. This crime was exceptional.

[Captain Tancredi]

I cannot accept that the circumstances of the James Bulger case can ever be considered to have been carried out by anyone who did not know what they were doing was wrong.

Fair enough, but I think there's a difference between knowing intellectually that something is wrong and understanding [I]why[I] it's wrong. A ten year old might know in his head that he was doing something wrong, but doesn't necessarily have the ability to empathise with his victim or understand the potential consequences of what he's doing. Perhaps there needs to be a transitional stage between, say, 8 and 16 to recognise that at that age, youngsters might know that something was theoretically wrong but are impressionable and not necessarily capable of thinking through consequences.

[Rob McCow]

All I know is that people are manifestly different at age 10 than they are at age 20.

I agree that they needed to be punished for their crimes, but frankly they sound absolutely insane. They shouldn't be given the same punishment or remedial work as an adult.

On the other hand, I liked what Ken Clarke said on the Sunday show - we should have faith that our judges and the jury system came to the right decision and that justice was served. I'm sure the jury at the trial spent a lot longer going over the details of this case than any of us have.

[Jason Thompson]

Well, here is the problem: people do not fit into boxes.

You cannot say any ten year old is incapable of understanding the consequences of his actions, because some might and some might not. People develop differently depending on their background and education and many other factors.

I agree with Mr McCow. Whatever we may think, a jury and a judge spent a long time going over the details, including what I am sure was a profesisonally asembled defence case as well as the gruesome details of the event.