Over the years I have developed a tendency to avoid reading or watching the news. Admittedly this is a rather disgraceful habit in the sense that it leaves me out of the loop on many important issues. On the plus side I tend to feel more well adjusted in that the goings on in the world do not make me perpetually angry.

One news piece I have been following intently is that of five year old Anthony Hinchliffe. During the school holidays a large group of 11/12 year olds enticed this boy out of his own garden and dragged him into the woods where they beat him and then hung him from a tree. Let me say that again. They enticed him to come and play for the purpose of torture and possibly death. Lucky for him that he escaped.

What has happened to these people?

Police questioned several of them and then released all but one, whom they have charged with grievous bodily harm and perverting the course of justice. Do you understand why I’m sickened yet? A group of eight people deliberately hung a child from a tree and they don’t even bother to charge attempted murder? Worse still they don’t even bother to charge more than one of them? And where the hell are we going wrong as a society when 11 year olds try to murder people?

Yeah I know, it’s all about the intent. English law will tell you that a child of 11 is incapable of creating the intent needed to be guilty of murder. I call bullshit. If a child can purposefully lure someone away from safety and then hoist them on a prepared rope into a tree, I’m pretty sure that kid has some idea what they intend to do. And if they don’t, why don’t they? What the hell are people teaching their kids these days? Don’t give me tht garbage about violence in movies and songs filled with angst. I grew up with that too. The thought never once crossed my mind to hurt someone else for kicks. I knew it was wrong!

The Jamie Bulger case sickened parents and children alike in 1993 yet it would seem that society has learnt nothing. Down the slippery slope we continue to slide.