The way I feel today,there isn’t a big enough bar.

OK kev,he’s a man now,but when he was convicted he was a child.Would you seriously execute a child ? I don’t believe I could.

People have expressed the view that they should have been executed and if they’d been normal,rational adults I’d have agreed with that totally,and with all the name’s that they’ve been called.People have also said that we should protect the vulnerable,and no matter how unpopular it might be,I would include these two children in that category.No way can a ten year old be called an adult.Of course they knew completely what they were doing,and of course they knew it was wrong,but they weren’t mature enough to hold back from it.I’d go for a very long custodial sentence,maybe thirty years or more.Should you pay for ever for something you did as a child ? I don’t know,I certainly wouldn’t have expected them to be out in society this early.

I’m not saying you can’t judge children simply because they’re children.I’m saying these two boys are being discussed as though they had adult characters when they didn’t and that learning to restrain the impulse to violent behaviour is one of the ways we move from being children to being grown up.

I stand by what I’ve said, I don’t believe that you can judge the actions of children by the same standards that you would apply to adults.A child is still a child,whatever term you use to describe him.

Last week I had to stop two 10 year old boys knocking six bells out of each other in a dispute over a Play Station – not easy,they were both taller than me. When you’re an adult you can restrain this sort of impulse.Just as well or I’d have stabbed the old dear who pushed in front of me in the bus queue yesterday.I’m being flippant,but it’s one of the differences between a child and an adult.

What I’m saying is that people have been condemning these two in terms as though they had been two adult murderers and not ten year old boys.And that I feel very sad that such a thing could be done by two people who were still children themselves.

Joey R, you have managed to put into words precisely what I was trying to say !
My husband is very fond of telling me that my brain must have been put in upside-down because I always seem to think differently from most people.I’m inclined to believe he’s right.
How many people can honestly say that their thought processes,moral outlook,values ,logic,reasoning,whatever you want to name,are exactly the same now as when they were ten years old ? There IS a difference between being a child and being an adult that has to be acknowledged.
Daz : I imagine they were tried the same as an adult,but they weren’t adults.
Jonesy : I’m a parent too. You say their conduct wasn’t that of a child, but that’s exactly what they were, children.
For the last time,I don’t deny that they knew what they were doing,AND I’M NOT MAKING EXCUSES FOR THEM.
But to my mind you cannot judge them as though they were adults.