I love that B36. I can still see the contrails above our house as a child in the late 50s. Is it a kit and if so, is it still available?

………or just grumpy contradiction.:(

The reason they were treated as children was because they were children. Notwithstanding Venables’ subsequent behaviour how else could/should they have treated them. 10 year olds as adults?

You are very wrong my friend. Look up the research into sociopaths in any reputable journal and you will see that these two exhibit classic sociopathic behavior. All serial killers start young. Their prey is allways that creature which is most vulnerable (usually small animals in the beginning) and the prey
grows in size as the children do. They are stone cold killers who should remain in custody for all of their lives because if given the chance they absolutely will kill again, because they enjoy it.

Gary

You may be right or you may be wrong. What is quite clear is that they are/were abnormal human beings and at least your last sentence separates us from a number of “hangers and floggers” posting on this thread. I have never suggested that they should have been released. Someone else posted that they should live out their lives with their identities public so that they have to live with their crime in public for the rest of their lives. I am not convinced that that course would serve the public good.

If they are psychopaths by some definition shouldn’t they be confined to a secure mental institution, anyway?

I agree totally. But being aware of something when you are 10 is entirely different from being aware as an adult. Children simply have not developed the maturity to understand the ramifications and consequences of their actions.

We would all agree that what they did was so appalling and beyond normal behaviour that the children cannot have been “normal” children. So, of course they had to be punished but also helped. Did anyone take the trouble to try to find out why they did it or were they just locked away in an institution to grow up as forgotten child murderers?

If we’re so confident that 10 years olds can understand amd reason in the same way as adults, then why weren’t there any on the jury?

Or, to repeat the point I made earlier – why don’t they have the vote and why can’t they have sex with anyone over the age of 10? The answer is, of course, that THEY ARE CHILDREN. That’s not meant aggressively but to try to emphasise the point that most here seem to be missing. You cannot have it both ways. If they are to be treated as adults then adults they should be, in terms of their rights and responsibilities.

I cannot speak for her but I think Bumblebee is trying to enunciate a difference between appalling acts of aggression against other human beings by children and adults. And I agree with her that you cannot endow a 10 year old child with the same sense of responsibility and care for others as for an adult. Otherwise we might must as well adjust all our laws to make children as responsible as adults and ascribe to them all the benefits of adulthood.

I doubt that many here would accept children having the vote at 10 or it being legal to have sex with a 10 year old. So we differentiate because children are immature and not seen to be as responsible for their actions as adults.

It would seem to me that this crime was so appallingly cruel that the perpetrators needed help as much as punishment. We have debated capital punishment and the avenging of capital crime here recently so it is unproductive to rehearse the arguments again, so I will not expand further on these points.

I BOUGHT my copy of Flypast from a newsagents this morning, having looked the front cover and without the need to rip off the plastic bag. I am delighted with it.:D:cool: