Am in tears watching the news.....

[VeniVidiVickiQV]

The letter from Gary Newlove's 12 year old daughter is being read out....

i saw this on the bbc website. i get really annoyed about this. i always feel it is voyeurism. she wrote this letter to her dying father. not the entire nation to drool over.

but i always feel like this about diana, and her kids as well. they should be left alone by us. we cant do anything constructive, so shouldnt be such peeping toms.

I saw it on the BBC website as well, heartbreaking. I do believe the world has gone mad!
I never thought of it like that cylon, that is very true!

There is something odd about very public grief like this.

As far as the media is concerned there doesn't even seem to be a line to cross anymore it's no holds barred.

Not that I am saying anything about the family, it's an odd world where that poor little girl's private expression of grief is so newsworthy.

Judgejudy, that is very true these days. We have got to the point now where nothing shocks or really horrifies

The letter was actually released by the family to the press as they don't want to talk publicly about what has happened. I live very close to where this happened and the family are well known in the area.

Yes it's a sad world

Just the other day another mum said to me that she intended to give her children the childhood she had (freedom to roam and all) and I thought, very noble...I wish it was that easy

It's horrible to think that, I get worried thinking of family members using public transport at night (live in London and they all comute), you always here tails of this so called 'happy-slapping' and a colleague of my father was viciously (sp??) attacked waiting for a train.. All for his poncey laptop!

Sorry not trying to scaremonger but it really does make me question what is going wrong in our society these days?

I hope every single boy who was involved in what went on, is forced to read that letter. Some of the meaning of it might actually penetrate and make them feel half the guilt they should.

Not so long back my 15 year old niece up in London was arrested for being in a gang of girls who mugged a little asian girl for her phone.

She seemed to think it was ok because she wasn't the actual one making the threats.

I just remember my sister saying to me "I couldn't help crying when I saw on the cctv at the police station that little girl on her knees begging them not to hurt her"

It broke my heart, what on earth happened to make things go so wrong that teenage girls think that's ok?

Unfortunately, teenagers of today are so unattached and because events like this are so common, it is almost viewed as being acceptable??

Well the punishments they get tend to re-inforce that attitude, as they get the message that it's no big deal.

What was your niece's sentence, JJandE? Was she even prosecuted, or just cautioned?

What I can never understand with these stabbings, shootings, beatings by kids is that they don't think it'll fuck up their own lives.

I'm not so naive as to expect people to genuinely give a shit about other people anymore ['no such thing as society' has become a reality] but are they too stupid/easily led/just plain evil to not ruin their own futures?

Gee- Maybe they dont think they have futures anyway so dont really care either way.

Kids aren't kids, so they try and grow up too quick, people then tell them they just kids and then they get all screwed up and hate everyone! It wasn't that long ago I was a teenager, all my 'socalled friends' thought like that! Thank god I didn't go down that path though!

Bellatrix she wasn't even cautioned

So she has learnt nothing at all.

My sister asked me for my advice and I said to her that if she were mine I would make her save £200 of her Saturday wages and then get the police to hand it over to the victim as compensation for it. So she understood that by standing there with her friends and not stopping it she was taking part and equally guilty.

My sister didn't do that.

The sad thing was that my niece was desperately upset....about being caught and thinking she might be imprisoned, when she was let off with not so much as a caution she was just relieved.

She was never upset about what she did only that she got caught

cylon, they read the letter out so that 'we' the voyeuristic audience can add more hatred to the culprits.

I too choked at hearing the letter, but agree that it was private. Not sure other than my suggestion above, as to why they did that.

My prayers for the family. So sad

Perhaps sharing their grief and love helps the victims family to make some kind of sense of the fact that what happened is not normal, and that their loved one is not just another name on a news report or a crime statistic?

It's uncomfortable, but humanising the victim at least helps us keep a toe-hold on the idea that this shouldn't be happening in our society.

Of course the media are exploiting it, but I think if the family choose to release this kind of 'private' letter, we should respect that decision.

I was discussing the state of this country with a South African friend and she was saying in her country there is a lot of crime; thefts and violence because the majority of the time the criminals have nothing and are doing these things to provide basic provisions for their children.

Kids are doing this in our country for mindless fun... What is going on with our society??

we saw that this morning.

I'm thinking of the teenagers that have been arrested. What is it that goes so wrong?

How can a life that started with an innocent newborn descend into something so bad that killing a man like this is even thinkable?

The kids may not have any knowledge of consequence as yet in their lives. They certainly have no empathy or respect for authority or life itself

The children responsible dont seem to understand that they are tainted for life now - they can never change the fact that they have killed someone - and they have a lot of years ahead to wear the blood on their hands. Beating a man to death might mean no more to them than it does snuffing someone out on a video game right now.

Having worked with violent youths in the past my idea would be to put these kids into immediate therapy where they can learn the consequences of their actions BEFORE they are sentenced. There needs to be a long drawn out programme that fits their actions so it has some impact on their lives and conscious. Then the penance can be paid.

I dont believe you can teach empathy, that's the frightening thing. But you can teach consequence.

It always strikes me when I return to the UK how very different things are to here in Switzerland. The impression I get as a brit revsisting the country I grew up in, (obv. this is a blanket generalisation, so not for every child, but for many I see all over the country) are the young children (say under 10) seem to be very over-protected and barely let out of an adult's sight. The parents seem to have extreme fear of letting the children out of their sight, and this is upheld by much of what I read on mumsnet. At the same time, the children, on the whole seem to be very sweet and polite, very ready to say thank you and sorry. I have been genuinely impressed by the high standards of behaviour of british children and the (albeit over protective) parentling they receive.

But then they seem to turn into early teenage monsters overnight! I am really stunned at how many young girls (say 12) were slapping on loads of make up and wearing tarty clothes. I don't know why young kids are so young and sweet then suddenly they turn into mini adults.

This is very very different here where young kids are given a lot of freedon (certainly too much by british standards), but they grow up a lot slower/at a more consistent rate so at 12 they have responsibilty but are very much still kids.

This leap between child & 'youth' seem a really sharp leap in Uk but ot the case here at all. It's a very noticable difference.

It's like the intensive parenting stops at age 10 then all hell breaks loose

That makes sense, Binkle.

It's a sad fact that the two boys who murdered Jamie Bulger (can't think of that poor baby without feeling like crying )
Have had a better life than they probably , no let's make that definitely would have done had they stayed with their families.

I think govt plans to get involved with 'problem' families at an early stage is at least something.

We run a nursery and have been approached by our local council to provide weekly two hour childcare for the toddlers of local parents going to Parenting Classes.We are going to help out, where possible.

I really object to the medias 'mini asbos' nonsense. The take-up rate for these classes has apparently been a lot more than anticipated, so it seems that there a lot of parents who do really want the help.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that all those attending these classes are necessarily from 'problem' families. But a lot seem to be, even from my safe middle-class viewpoint.

I agree binkle - they need to be taught about consequences of their actions before being thrown into prison to learn more about crime.

Isn't empathy something their parents should have taught them at a young age?

Betty. Certainly for one of the boys in the Bulger case there seemed to be no interest in him. A ten year old child regularly roaming the streets with gangs of teenagers until 3 am (according to the media, admittedly) can't have felt that any adult was guiding him at all.