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Anorak News | Jon Venables And Child A, The 6-Year-Old Girl Abused By 23 Classmates

Jon Venables And Child A, The 6-Year-Old Girl Abused By 23 Classmates

by | 1st, April 2010

JON Venables: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at one of the killer’s of two-year-old James Bulger in the new, featuring Child A,  girl sexually abused for six months by 23 classmates.

The Telegraph brings news of Child A, a girl of six who “suffered months of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of 23 classmates”. Six months, says the story. And, yes, 23 classmates.

Nigel Bunyan has more:

Child A was stripped on a daily basis and routinely assaulted by children of her own age.

But nothing could be done because of “a combination of the children’s young ages and a lack of firm evidence”.

James Bulger Case in pictures

No evidence of a child stripped and sexually abused by 23 other children on a daily basis? Not one shred of evidence? A review of child A’s case has been published and the key finding is that she “undoubtedly” the victim of sexual abuse.

Horrible stuff. But the abusers are under the age of criminal responsibility. So, what can be done? The papers couches the story in a bigger picture:

The case comes amid renewed debate about the criminal age of responsibility – which stands at 10 – after Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner, said that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson should not have been prosecuted in an adult court for the murder of James Bulger.

Jon Venables: Vomiting Satan, Evil, Nurture And An ‘Unpleasant’ Thing

Ten. The girl was 6. The alleged perpetrator’s are also six. Is six too young to be placed in court – and note that the there is no evidence of what occurred and the child’s mother heard about the abuse from another parent.

Child A’s mother tells us:

“I will never forget the look on her face. I said ‘It is ok, you can tell Mummy’, and then it all started to come out. She was telling me things that I think every mother dreads to hear from their daughter. It was horrendous what she was going through.

“Every day she was being stripped, she was being physically and sexually abused every day and every day she cried out for help and nobody ever came. And I think you can’t excuse that. How can you possibly say that is OK and nobody is answerable for that?”

Neelam Bhardwaja, president of the Directors of Social Services in Wales, makes one child’s experiences part of a bigger problem:

“If there are these number of children involved, it begs the questions ‘Where did that behaviour arise from? Why are these children behaving in this way? And are they from abusive situations themselves?’”

In other news, it could be months before a decision on what to do with Jon Venables is made. The Ministry of Justice has side-stepped the thorny issue and referred Venables’s case to the Parole Board.

A statement from the Board tells us:

“The Parole Board will now start the process of reviewing this case in the normal way. We are not able to set a timescale on the review, but will confirm when it has been concluded”.

In other words: we still haven’t got a clue what to do and will let you know when we work it out, although it may occur at a time when it is a good day to bury the news. Thanks for your interest. The last word is with Sir David Latham, head of the Parole Board:

“I’m concerned that the society we’re presently living in is becoming too risk-averse,” he said.

“Society needs to realise that we can’t create a world which is free of risk. What society has to determine is what level of risk it is prepared to accept.”

James Bulger Case in pictures




Posted: 1st, April 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (4) | TrackBack | Permalink