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

So if a child, for example, stones a kitten to death, and there is no sign of parental abuse or neglect, and their upbringing has been perfectly normal, what is that saying? Is it saying that a child is evil, naturally wicked? From birth? Does that really happen, unless there is some inherent mental instability? In which case they not of sound mind.

that is not normal !! and you will not have seen what went on 24/7 until you lived there

all sorts of nice , professional, well to do people do abuse their children

i doubt the prisons are full of people born evil. i think they are 99 % full of people who have sunk down to the depths for all sorts of complex social reasons

normal, stable children do not behave as those you ahve described

so they were either born evil, were unstable in some way. or horribly abused.

it is never as it appears on the surface, ever.

beanie, Professor Tanya discussed that case in the lecture she gave. very interesting perspective

well looks like it will be attampetd murder

The two boys were taken to a phsychologist and behaviour experts as far as I know and nothing was ever found to be wrong with any of them.

Well I still keep in contact with the parents and the boys come back to terrorize the mum every now and again, the boys have never once said they were abused or neglected. I'm actually pretty shocked they ahve'nt as I guess that would excuse everything they've ever done

But in triplets why would 2 go and not all 3 if thats the case? If they were abused then all 3 would have been I assume. The family are still lovely and they have even babysat my son I have never, ever even thought that had happened I was only a kid at the time. So details are sketchy.

All rather terrifying - 2 boys go out armed with knives with the intent to do harm and meet 2 boys going out to play. If that is not a chilling example of social divides I don't know what is. Are we supposed to send our children out to play to have fun or with the fear that they might have to defend themselves?

Good to see that charges have been brought atleast we might get a chance to find out what and why this event took place.

Also good to see the victims are improving

mamadiva, abuse can be a reason, not an excuse

and you do not know the full story re those children. that is my point, the surface is not necessary a true reflection of anything

but we do know that 2 children have been badly hurt.

I think Lulu was referring to Mamadiva's story of her friend's children and not the current news story.

i was, yes, thanks nancy

i hope Professor Byron's lecture is going to be avaible via youtube or the university website as it addressed this sort of issue and was thought provoking and really interesting.

Mamadiva you said yourself though that not all children who grow up in difficult circumstances turn out bad. But regardless of whether the two children you knew were abused, their behaviour was quite clearly not normal.

I do think that it is a little simplistic to suggest that all children who commit horrific crimes have been abused, as I also think it?s too simplistic to suggest that all children who commit horific crimes are evil.

What needs to be acknowledged IMO is that killing or attempting to kill someone when you?re eleven years old is not normal, and that all underlying issues need to be investigated and addressed, in order to hopefully ensure that the perpetrators be rehabilitated and go on to become functional members of society.

If a child has been abused/has a sn/a mental illness the act is no less abhorrent, and the child should still be held accountable. But it?s surely not as black and white as ?child hurts other child, therefore child is evil and deserves no forgiveness, ever.? Surely in order to prevent such acts happening again we need to look at the underlying reasons and address them.

Because if we don?t address the underlying reasons, the child will re-enter society, and it?s likely they will re-offend again, as the underlying reasons will still be there.

And last time I looked we didn?t live in a society that locks eleven year olds up for life.

Wnnabe tis is the point I am trying to make!!

The fact that as soon as something like this happens the knee jerk reaction of Britain is to blame everyone but the child. We need to look at the child and their parentage to determine the root of it, it could be abuse, it could be SN, it could just be evil no one knows until we actually look and sitting back and saying well that's fine you did that but what did your parents do to you is not the answer.

AND AGAIN I NEVER said that 11YO should be locked uor life I said they should be locked up for a few years, and I dont see whats wrong with that. They did the crime so they can do time in a YO that is after all what they are there for is it not?

but you said yourself, "by the sounds of it they are just little shits TBH. SN or not that is too far." which certainly doesn't imply that you believe any underlying causes need looking at.

There are many people that believe James bulger's killers should have been locked up for life/should have been executed etc, and no doubt if these two boys are found guilty of this crime the lynch mobs will be out in force.

I think the crux (sp?) of this is the perceived right, especially on here, that everyone has the right to have children regardless of their ability to bring them up as people who have any sort of self worth - because that is what is wrong with society as a whole. Children are born to people that don't really want them but especially in villages where this crime happened, see no other way of life. They then do a less than adequate job of bringing them up and most of all teach them no self worth.

If you have no self worth you cannot understand that others do - you see their lives as expendable and pointless as your own.

Rant over. Children are not born inherantly evil, they are made that way by their upbringing and circumstance.

:"If you have no self worth you cannot understand that others do - you see their lives as expendable and pointless as your own."

i think that has really summed it up well.

They should be locked up somewhere IMO.

Not somewhere awful like jail but somewhere where basic priviledges are taken away and slowly earnt back but with these priviledges come hugs, praise, rewards, love, affection, education - all the building blocks that children need to be moral beings and good members of society.

has anyone said they should not be locked up?

I don't think anybody has said they shouldn't be punished. The concern is that they are rehabilitated and educated during that punishment so that, when they are released, they can contribute something to society and rebuild their lives.

there is a story in an wilson's the victorians about a case very similar to the bulger case, again dealt with very differently. it was viewed that the boys had sinned by letting the devil enter their hearts but that the devil, of course, was responsible. there was the same kind of outcry and navel-gazing etc but society had the devil to blame so was able to come to terms. they were sent to a church reform school, one rehabilitated by all accounts, the other struggled more.

as nancy said further up, this is why all the 'string em up' stuff is understandable but pointless with baby p etc. there's a good chance he'd have turned out the same as his parents, and so on and so on. where do we draw the line?