Raising crimial age 'ruled out'

The Government has ruled out a call from the Children's Commissioner to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years after she argued the killers of James Bulger were too young to have been prosecuted for murder.

Maggie Atkinson said children under the age of 12 who committed crimes were not old enough to understand the full consequences of their actions and should not be prosecuted for any crime.

But the Ministry of Justice responded by saying: "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."

The MoJ said custody for under-18s was "always a last resort" and only 3% of young offenders who are convicted receive a custodial sentence.

Dr Atkinson's comments came after James Bulger's mother, Denise Fergus, met Justice Secretary Jack Straw this week to discuss the return to custody of Jon Venables, one of her two-year-old son's killers. Mr Straw has repeatedly refused to confirm the details of why Venables was returned to custody and has said only that he faces "very serious allegations".

Criminal barrister Felicity Gerry, a specialist in prosecuting and defending child offenders, said current laws already required Crown Prosecution Service lawyers to first decide whether a child understood what they did was wrong.

She said: "My view is that there is no need to change the age of criminal responsibility providing that prosecutors are applying the proper tests in deciding whether or not to prosecute."

Dr Atkinson said the James Bulger killing was a "dreadful thing", and Venables and Robert Thompson, who were 10 in 1993 when they were charged with the boy's murder, needed to be in a contained environment like a youth justice facility and given programmes to help them turn their lives around.

Seeking to clarify her views, she said it was right for children like James Bulger's killers who commit terrible crimes to be held in secure settings. She said: "Children who carry out such atrocities and other serious offences need to understand the severity of their actions. They should undertake intense programmes appropriate to their age in secure facilities where they are helped to make positive and lasting changes to their behaviour."

But Ms Gerry said this kind of rehabilitation was already being applied to children, adding: "You can't hold people securely unless you have proved they have done something wrong so you would have to have some form of litigation."