Originally Posted by kirklancaster (Post 8253789)

I can only comment based upon the reportage so far, but isn't this just one more shameful example of ALL which is wrong with society now?

A young, gentle and decent child's life has been savagely ended by a bullying coward.

If there is now reportage from several sources that the victim was being bullied by the murderer, then such knowedge was common and SHOULD have been picked up on by the school, who should have dealt with it in a serious manner and closely monitored the bully.

The parents of the bully and the bullied boy should have been also made aware of the situation by the school.

Of course, I doubt that any of this happened.

Until our attitudes change, these atrocious incidents will continue and increase in frequency.

Every weekend some innocent person is being murdered by YOUNG people on our streets - whether that is grown fathers being set upon by teenage gangs after asking them to 'quieten down', or decent young students being knifed and beaten to death by teenage yobs for doing nothing more than having a night out with their friends.

I am sick and tired of people using 'youth' as some sort of mitigating factor in defense of the abhorrent little bastards.

An innocent life has been deliberately taken in these incidents.

That life has been PERMANENTLY ended. It cannot be restored in 6 years or 8 years - it has ended, and the INNOCENT victim has been sentenced to death.

The heartbreak, devastation, and LOSS, of the victims innocent families will not cease after 6 years or 8 years either - the parents without a son/daughter, the children without a father/mother, the spouse without a husband/wife - all permanent, and all sentenced to suffer such for LIFE.

And this is why, it is now time to restore TRUE justice in this country.

Life imprisonment should mean life imprisonment.

Murderers are becoming increasingly younger and younger, and the current 6 to 8 year terms of imprisonment which are standard, are just NOT realistic.

Venables and Thompson are not a unique case as far as 'time-served' is concerned, and it makes a sneering mockery of the notion of 'Justice' to the grief-stricken families of murder victims, that those responsible are enjoying freedom and a LIFE in their early 20's, when their own innocent loved ones have been so callously deprived of that same enjoyment to life by these very bastards.

Any sentence for cupable murder should be standard and serve both as a Deterrent and a Punishment.

Until then, these senseless murders will continue.

The subject of Bullying, and official attitudes to it, also needs serious, and very urgent overhaul.

Authorities pay 'Lip Service' to it, making all the right noises but in actual fact such roaring is often found to emanate from 'Paper Tigers', and were it not for a few individuals within institutions (often at ground level) Bullying would not be addressed at all. (I would wager that there are far fewer 'Ammi's' around than there are those who ignore, lighten, and tolerate bullying within schools).

Bullying is a very widespread, growing, and serious practice which destroys lives, and more frequently than may be thought, actually takes them - be that by murder as in this case - or by the suicide of the victims, and it is time to treat this malignancy as such.