Is This The Proper Way To Treat Children?

I can’t help feeling more than a little uneasy by the case of two boys, aged 10 and 11, convicted yesterday at the Old Bailey of the attempted rape of a girl aged 8.

What really astonishes and appalls me about this gross misapplication of the British justice system was the announcement that both boys had been placed on the sex offenders register. Just think about it, while still at primary school, the rest of their lives are already blighted for what seems to have been little more than childhood curiosity.

Three things about this case are deeply disturbing. Firstly, it has made me even more convinced that the age of criminal responsibility needs to be raised to at least 12 years. Ever since the tragic case of Jamie Bulger I have wondered what was going through the minds of those two boys eventually convicted of his murder. I am not suggesting that they didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong, but I seriously doubt whether they fully understood the awful and inevitable consequences of what they did, at the time they were doing it.

Secondly, this case was heard at the Old Bailey, the most senior criminal court in the land and what is more, an adult court. I don’t understand why this case could not have been heard in a Juvenile Court, well away from the media spotlight and without a jury. Surely, those responsible for bringing this case were being particularly vindictive by staging it at the Old Bailey. Why did they demand a show trial, for this is, in effect, what has happened?

Thirdly, what precisely is the public interest that justified bringing this case to court at all? Boys, aged 10 and 11, branded potential sex offenders with all the restrictions that implies for how they will have to live their daily lives, for the rest of their lives. Whose interest does this serve? The victim? I hardly think so. The public? Well I suppose it satisfies the salacious interest of some warped minds and sells a few more tabloid newspapers. The Criminal Justice System? No, just the opposite, this case has served only to highlight that, in Britain today, with our overcrowded prisons and our creaking probation service we continue to demand that our prurient interest in everything ‘sexual’ be satisfied.

In short, as a society, we have become unhealthily obsessed with and by, sex and sex offenders. We need to both grow up and lighten up. As Virginia Ironside asks in today’s Independent, “Did none of the jury have a normal childhood?”