not much of a sentence really is it – will they come out the other side remorseful? personally I doubt it, yet the tax payer will most likely fund a new cosy lifestyle for them and the family. I just hope the victims get the same attention they deserve

think they need help – not prison.

they are only children themselves.

You cannot blame those boys in this instance. Kids should have been taken into care long before anything like this happened.

its outrageous that they were tried in a criminal court at all and criminal punishment is of no use.

Sorry – these two boys are clearly damaged and victims themselves. Only in England ( and a very few other countries) would children of this age be treated disgracefully like this.

a travesty of justice.

Long post about this over on the other forum…

They were tried in a criminal court because they are CRIMINAlS though?!

they're not going to prison – well not what I would call prison anyroad! (which is correct, they need all the help they can get, but I just can't see them becoming model citizens out of it)

call me old fashioned but I hope karma comes into play at some point in the future

dicky – to be a criminal you have to have some comprehension that what you did was wrong – they clearly did not.

when my tumble dryer was damaged i cut off its energy supply and dumped it . There is a lot to be said for that approach. I hope if any of your family get tortured to near death your equally forgiving.

I'd disagree on one point TJ. I believe that they knew exactly what they were doing but due to their "toxic upbringing" cared little about their actions or consequences. However I would agree that they are damaged and need mending.

The person at the root of this is the father. Maybe he was subject to a similar upbringing too, I don't know. I would suggest a good first step would be steralisation of the father then he can't produce any further damaged offspring. In fact I'd go a step further and ban him from contact with children under threat of custodial sentence.

Indefinite could be a long time though

'to be a criminal you have to have some comprehension that what you did was wrong – they clearly did not'

cobblers. Of course they did.

the children had already been removed form their parents. Sadly this was done too late.

TJ is right, they had no comprehension of the evil they were committing as the messages they received from their parents were that it was ok to undertake such acts.

If all kids were subjected to violence and the telly tubbies used bricks to batter tinky winky and forced Po to perform oral sex on Barny the dinosaur then they'd all think this kind of thing was fine.

dicky – to be a criminal you have to have some comprehension that what you did was wrong – they clearly did not.

Yeah thats rubbish TJ and you know it. If they didn't know why did they take their victims down to the woods? But yeah their upbringing was at some fault for them being freaks.

Agree with TJ.

Very deeply disturbed young boys, who have grown up watching their father beat their mother and have clearly been damaged as a result.

They need out of that environment and they need help.
I hope they get that but I doubt they will 🙁

At the age of ten? It would be very unusual for them to have fully developed moral sense at that age and in their case their so badly damaged that I doubt their development is normal.

this is why in humane societies children are not tried in adult courts – even in Scotland it is very rare children are tried in adult courts and in most of the rest of the world it never happens.

Some links to the debate on this. I think the whole trial, media circus and sentencing is an huge stain on the English law.

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snha-03001.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/jun/20/bulger.familyandrelationships

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/children-and-crime–age-of-criminal-responsibility-restored-to-14-1611502.html

comprehension or not. They need teaching that you can't do that. Lock them up for the rest of their natural (if we're not going to execute the evil little toerags), sterilsie the parents. Job done. A message is sent to all the other verminous kids roaming the streets these days.

Im not really sure of the point of this post ?

This is a terrible crime, but im not really sure why people are critising the length of the sentence.

What do they think if their let out in 10 years all of a sudden there'll be sorry and be able to live decents lives.

Or maybe in 15 years every thing will be hunky dory ? How would you work that out M6TTF ?

In reality I dont think there is much that can be done either for the victims or accused.

Like people say the accused obviously need help as well, but I doubt there is very much that can be done for them they are very unlikely to lead normal productive lives after this no matter how good the physiological help.

Also its not like after the sentence there just going to be let straight back on the street.

Dickydutch – you really think that will do any good? Are children deterred by prison sentences?

If they cannot comprehend they cannot learn

Was reported yesterday that during the search for the 2nd victim, the father of the assailants came forward with his boys and told the police his boys weren't to blame because they had been with him all day.
This was BEFORE the assailants had been formally named.

This tells me several things, that the father at least was in regular contact with the boys, the boys KNEW what they had done was wrong and that the father was prepared to cover for attempted murder.

Sometimes my stance against the death penalty is somewhat stretched…

at the age of ten i bet you didn't stop picking your nose just because your mate got grounded by his mum for doing it.

you can't send a message to 'verminous kids' by locking up 2 other kids who they've never met. Your average 10 year old will have little comprehension of why that is in any way relevant to them.

Oh, they knew what they were doing alright. They just didn't care.

I do agree that it's help they need more than anything though. I feel sorry for everyone involved TBH.

Its the parents that should go down

mi©k – Member
when my tumble dryer was damaged i cut off its energy supply and dumped it . There is a lot to be said for that approach.

Are you seriously advocating the death sentence for ten year olds????? 😯

scu98rkr
There is a fair chance that they can be rehabilitated but the criminal sentence makes it less likely. Venables and Thompson – the bulger killers – one of them was well rehabilitated the other less successfully.

It can be done.

At their current age I reckon the longer you lock them up the worse they will be when they get out.

@scu98rkr – (i think) my point was that I don't think 5 years is long enough for any sort of rehabilitation given the extreme nature of the crime and the appalling upbringing they clearly had. I hope they don't have a 'normal' life in the future, i don't think they deserve to. Maybe that's ignorant and non-forgiving of me but if it happened to my son i'd damn well make sure they suffered!

andemJeremy – Member
scu98rkr
There is a fair chance that they can be rehabilitated but the criminal sentence makes it less likely. Venables and Thompson – the bulger killers – one of them was well rehabilitated the other less successfully.

It can be done.

do you have evidence of this?

I agree Muddydwarf – shocking to hear Dad defending the boys even before they had found the second boy.

The parents need locking up in a prison where the 'prison rules' will be regularly dealt out.

These boys are never going to be right and I wonder how society will cope with them when they are eventually allowed out. Indefinite is a very long time for these two.

M6TTF

Its more or less what the judge said at the time that there was a court case bout them going into an adult jail or not.

graham s yes i am , or at least locked up til they are 16 and then hung

There is a lot to be said for that approach. I hope if any of your family get tortured to near death your equally forgiving

Thats why we have a justice system that does not consider the vengeful approach advocated by many above.
Yes I may feel that way but I wouldnt like to live in a society that acts on my basic and neanderthal response.
I agree mostly with TJ and as a parent now and someone who was growing up in Liverpool at the time of the Bulger attack I can honestly say I shed tears at the time and since when I consider the pain and suffering he must have experienced. These boys were relatively lucky however I suspect they are scarred for life.
Wreaking punishments from the middle ages is not the answer.

I fail to see that if I kid hurts another kid he doesn't think it's a bad thing – he won't want to get hurt in the same way right?

mi©k

and your solution would achieve what exactly?

they would not do it again for sure and it may put off other people who think that its quite a good idea as theyve nowt else to do ;-(

FFS what chance did they ever have with parents (and I use the term extremely loosely) like that?
What the two kids did was vile, inhuman and difficult to comprehend, but it seems to me that the initial crime had been commited a long time ago, by the sad excuses for human beings that were supposed to bring them up. None of us know how much comprehension they had about what they were doing, it's easy to say 'oh they knew', but after years of desensitisation and normalisation of abusive behaviour, would you?. I only hope the 'sentence' will be as much about help as it is about punishment. And what about the victims? Most people just seem to be baying for 'justice', while overlooking what's going to happen to those two poor little buggers? As I said on the other thread, they'll more than likely end up totally reliant on social and health care for the rest of their lives, so instead of wasting time thinking up punishments for the perpetrators, we should perhaps try using our time more positively in helping the victims.

Tandemjeremy – You are talking absolute cobblers!! I certainly knew what was right and wrong at the age of 10. I am now 30 and I think it would be fair to say that a 10 year old of this day and age has far more understanding of life than what I had at the age of ten. Kids DO grow up much quicker now. To physically pick up a sink and smash it over another kids head is just plain EVIL. As well as the other disgusting and sickening acts the kids were put through. And you really think these little rats didn't think they were doing anything wrong?? What a load of cr@p. At the age of ten they are 1-2 years off high school. They are fully aware of what is right and wrong at that age.

I certainly knew what was right and wrong at the age of 10

you aren't quite getting this are you

YOU aren't one of those kids

YOU (i'm assuming) weren't bought up in an extremely violent and unsuitable household

they were given a completely incorrect set of morals by their parents. At the age of ten what you by and large thought of as right and wrong is what your parents told you was

You know how we are/were known for taking nuclear waste from other countries and making money out of it? I reckon we should pay someone to look after these 2 problems for us. Give them a new start I say – Zimbabwe maybe?

When the kids stamped on the ducklings and cygnets in Sandall Park, the Police and soc services were involved, they knew after that it was wrong.

When they set fire to a girl later that year, same again.

When they tried to burn the cafe down, same again.

I could list a good few other incidents known about locally, from about three years ago up to Edlington. What they weren't shown either by parents or the so called professionals was that those actions were unacceptable, and arguably the incidents which led to their removal to Edlington should have had them in a secure unit with 24hr supervision. Sending them to a 60yr old foster carer with limited mobility, unbriefed about their previous vindictive violence and not a team of specialists wasn't helping them. I hope they can be rehabilitated, and think it should be possible. They have never had a prolonged spell in a nurturing environment with appropriate boundaries, sanctions and rewards, so there's a lot of unlearning to do. However, I can't see how a minimum of five years sounds right for what they have done, I'd have thought twenty would be a good starting point. Wouldn't have a problem with them staying in a prison or institution for life as a punishment, whether or not rehab takes place though, and that would go for any other attempted or actual murder.