Monday, March 15, 2010
JAMES BULGER’S mother called for the British Children’s Commissioner to be sacked for "twisted and insensitive" comments about the murder of her two-year-old son.
Denise Fergus spoke out after Dr Maggie Atkinson said his killers should never have been prosecuted because they were too young to understand the full consequences of their actions.
The Ministry of Justice yesterday ruled out Dr Atkinson’s proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years, saying children aged 10 and over did know the difference between "bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing".
Dr Atkinson described the killing as "exceptionally unpleasant" but said it was wrong that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were 10 in 1993 when they were charged with the boy’s murder, were tried in an adult court.
Mrs Fergus told reporters:
"To say that his killers should not have been tried in an adult court is stupid. They committed an adult crime – a cold-blooded murder that was planned and premeditated and they were tried accordingly."
She added: "It is a shock to people like Dr Atkinson that children can be truly evil by 10. But it is a fact and I fear there will be more of them and we need laws to be tightened up so we can deal with them."
Dr Atkinson said children under the age of 12 should not be prosecuted for any crime.
But the Ministry of Justice said: "We believe that children aged 10 and over can differentiate between bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing. We do not intend to raise the age of criminal responsibility. It is not in the interests of justice, of victims, or the young people themselves, to prevent serious offending being challenged."
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