Children Assaulted/Critical but stable condition

[Claire2009]

Two boys aged 10 & 11 being questioned about this. Don't know how to do links but this might work

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7984392.stm

These boys have not committed murder. They have not yet been convicted. Prehaps at worst the boys have committed GBH with intent. Even then they have not yet been charged.

Infact many adults who commit GBH do not go to jail for life and adult rapists often get little more than a few months in jail. Yet people call for children to be punished more harshly.

The issue of helping the victims and rehabitating the perporators are completely different. If the perporators do not get help and some kind of childhood they will be even worst as adults.

smallorange - I remember that. Feeling so sorry for those boys who were, when all is said and done, just children and damaged children at that. We made them, we have to fix them. Compassion is needed in bucketloads, as well as the means to prevent it happening again. Without that justice will not be done.

Sorry. That was meant to say 'we made them damaged'.

"we"

The society we have made for us all I mean.

i think rhubarb has a point regarding 'catching' the warning signs, and if there is any kind of politically motivated investigation into the 'whys' of this case, one would hope that someone would look into if they had done such things before on a smaller sclae and why - no institution such as school or social services (if they were involved) had picked up on it

but then supposing ghey did - supposing they did catch the behaviour earlier - what kind of intervention is there for the children, family and paretns?

i know of a family - two boys - the mum and her partner both use drugs and sell drugs. they are known to the community, they are known to the police. their house had been raided numerous times. the kids are positively ferral. street bullies. beating kids up and destroying property.

and i told them that at 10 they could be prosecuted for their crimes. and that if they touched my son ever again, i would phone the police and have then arrested for assault.

it never occured to them that anyone could do anything - becuase you see, no one really does anything about their parents flagrant disregard for society and the law.

I have no idea what that 'click here' thing is at the beginning of my post

Who on earth is celling for them to be punished more harshly than adults?

I think some people are making up things as they go along. I have only read from posters that these children be punished for the crime they committed, and in some way in doing so, comprehend that justice must be served for their horrific crimes.

calling

"becuase you see, no one really does anything about their parents flagrant disregard for society and the law."

Which I think is what I meant. If their parents don't care, someone else has to.

what i meant is - if we had a society where the justice system actually worked, then the children would see a cause and effect scenario.

bad things = bad consequences.

at the moment - they don't see that. so why take part in mornal society when you can rob and steal, sell drugs, beat people up and take the piss numerous times before anyone does anything

they just said on bbc news that another boy was assaulted the same way one week previously but a man scared the two off, and that the two are in foster care. then there was another statement about social services face more criticism et al.

Rhubarb, do you think they will be able to charge "with intent" though? Similarly attempted murder?

Because I think although the attackers knew exactly what they were doing at the time (inflicting severe pain and humiliation) I really don't think that they will have understood the potential consequences (i.e. death) from what they were doing - because of several factors - emotional and intellectual maturity, the casual violence on TV/videos/games that has no apparent consequence etc etc, the fact that possibly they have endured similar cruelty.

theyve both been charged with attempted murder.

But the boys who killed James Bulger were convicted of murder - don't you have to show intent for that?

yu do to a certain extent. mansluaghter would be if you accidentally killed someone. but murder is if you knew by your action that the most probable outcome for your actions would be death.
or at least thats my understanding.

what they are charged with will very much depend on what comes out following the questioning of all 4 boys involved.

with murder, you have to prove malice aforethought . i think. some forward planning to cause the death. intent too. tis a long time since my legal days.

If they had already assaulted a boy why the hell were they roaming the streets?

Afai understand, it can be classed as 'with intent' or 'murder' if you are carrying a weapon. People who don't intend to cause gbh or similar don't carry knives etc.

Were the in possession of weapons?

they used a knife on one boy and a brick on the other. i presume that the nkife at least was bought with them.

even if the police had charged them with a previous assult ( and as they have not been named how would the parent of this other boy know if it was the same children??)(yet more bad journalism) they would not have been placed directly in jail. at the most they would have been bailed to return for a court appearance.

they would have been able to "roam the streets" freely.

Those poor boys though - the one's who were hurt. They'll not dare to go out of the front door again.

Okay am back and have calmed down a bit now,

Sorry about earlier just raised a lot of bad thoughts for me and it just irritates me when people won't listen to others opinions just because they may not be the norm. But I don't want to get into all that again.

I have just seen on SKY news that both boys have had a total of 4 charges each imposed on them as well as being questioned about this. according to the media sounds like there will be more charges brought. I just fail to understand how anyone can seem to have more compassion for the two who did this rather than the ones who were actually injured, I am far more concerned about how these boys will pull through than what will happen to the thugs who did it.

''Who on earth is calling for them to be punished more harshly than adults?''

I agree with crushed, noone has said that if it was aimed at me then I never said that I said they should be dealt with more harshly than the way kids are treated in YO now because it does'nt do any good. Especially when we live in a society where an ASBO seems to be some sort of honour to some kids

I have huge sympathy for the victims but I also have sadness for the criminals and their wasted lives - they're victims too.

You don't always have to take sides.

I'm not taking sides just that I cannot accept that everyone else should be blamed but the children.

I do blame the children - what they have done (or may have done - they haven't been found guilty) is unforgiveable and evil. The only thing is they probably can't see that because they've grown up in an environment where aggression, violence and hate is the norm.

It's an outrage and an abhorrence to us. it's a day in the life for them.