Why shouldn't it be a debate about the age of criminal responsibility and how we deal with child defendants? What would you like the debate to be about dittany? There is nothing to debate about the crime itself, and I don't this case is an example of most rape cases, against adults or children, so this case can't really be extrapolated to the wider issue of the low level of rape convictions. We have no information about the background of the boys, so we can't debate the effect that has had on them. The only other issue is the adversarial nature of our court system, and many people have acknowledged the way this little girl was questioned was unfair.
FWIW, my opinions on child defendants extend to the Edlington case and the Bulger killers, I don't think any of those children should be demonised and I think an adult court, in public, was absolutely the wrong way to deal with it, although the resulting sentence in both cases was appropriate.
If these boys were 8, the physical crime would still have taken place, but no legal crime would have been committed. There is always going to be a cut off, and some offenders will always be underneath it. That said, I think for most violent crimes, 10 is a reasonable age for NT children, BUT there needs to a separate court for them. In the case of rape, I think it is difficult when the offenders are very young children. As I said earlier in the thread, their understanding of sex may still be very hazy, and compared to an obvious violent act, it is not so obvious that your actions result in the pain of someone else (not necessarily in this case, I am speaking generally).