Vince Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer.
Also in agreement with this. It's not clear to me if everyone has actually seen the QT being discussed, because some of the stuff here isn't what happened?
There are at least two reasons why it can be said to be worse. Firstly, because your poor old Grandmother has lived a long life, whereas a child hasn't. Ask the question, would you rather someone murdered you when you were 90 or when you were 10? Of course it is worse, from the victim's perspective, to be murdered at 10. Therefore the murderer of the child is more culpable.If you were to say "Is it just as evil to kill an innocent adult as it is to kill an innocent child?" It'd seem strange if you said the two murders weren't equally evil. Like if someone broke in at night and murdered my poor old Grandmother, this to me seems _just as evil_ as the murder of a child.
Is there any reason at all to believe this? From every account I've read of this, it seems 100% clear that they knew exactly what they were doing. They even tried to cover up what they'd done my trying to make it look like he'd been killed by a train. It seems very odd that someone's first reaction would be to try and make excuses for the murderer without any evidence or justification. They were found guilty and so found to have the mens rea for murder. I see no reason to question that decision.Exactly. The unpopular point that they may have not known what they were doing, because they were kids.
Especially with adults, such as Baby P's killer, I fail to see how this is relevant. The adults in that case were late 20s to early 30s: why should they not be responsible for their actions? I can see that the reason they're such fucked-up people is because of their upbringing, but the idea that this in any way justifies the deaths of innocent people strikes me as absurd. The aim of the law should be to deter people from committing these crimes and punishing them when they do. Saying "well, you can kill anyone you like because you've had a terrible upbringing" is contrary to the interests of everybody else. It should be no more of an excuse than the fact that you don't like Mondays.The thing that gets me about the baying-mob mentality that always surrounds these cases of child offenders is that people seem unable to appreciate that the perpetrators most probably have had a pretty appalling upbringing themselves for them to have gone so badly wrong at such a young age. … Naturally this argument applies to adults, too. Baby P's mother was horribly abused as a kid
Is there any reason at all to believe this? From every account I've read of this, it seems 100% clear that they knew exactly what they were doing. They even tried to cover up what they'd done my trying to make it look like he'd been killed by a train. It seems very odd that someone's first reaction would be to try and make excuses for the murderer without any evidence or justification. They were found guilty and so found to have the mens rea for murder. I see no reason to question that decision.
I agree it's arbitrary -- same as the ages of consent, drinking, driving, &c. It's difficult to think of a much better solution, though, than a simple age limit. At least it provides certainty, is predictable and is the same for everyone. In this case, I think it would have been worse had they not been prosecuted, if they had been under the age of criminal responsibility. Yes, it is a shortcoming of the law that this could easily happen, but I don't see a better solution.I don't know about this. It's not the argument that I was making, but surely 10 year olds are still children. To put it another way, aged nine they would not have been prosecuted, "mens rea" or not--clearly an arbitrary distinction.
Saying "well, you can kill anyone you like because you've had a terrible upbringing" is contrary to the interests of everybody else. It should be no more of an excuse than the fact that you don't like Mondays.
Children under 10 would be unlikely to be imprisoned at all, or at the most only for a few months, because, in their early stage of development, it is taken that they would they respond essentially to suitable rehabilitation (truly, a 're-forming').
I was in the pub at the time this was shown, making almost word for word the same argument Will Self made about the Bulger killers... I was shouted down, of course, whilst Self was applauded. The argument that perhaps the murder of a child and the murder of an (equally innocent) adult might be equally reprehensible. The murder of a child is always far, far worse apparently.
Plus, I just find it astonishing how many people still believe in this idea of 'intrinsic evil'. It's infantile. A moral fantasy...
Seems like Carol Vorderman is pretty 'unsavory' and, well, 'kooky' is the word that came to mind.
There are at least two reasons why it can be said to be worse. Firstly, because your poor old Grandmother has lived a long life, whereas a child hasn't. Ask the question, would you rather someone murdered you when you were 90 or when you were 10? Of course it is worse, from the victim's perspective, to be murdered at 10. Therefore the murderer of the child is more culpable.
You could just as easily argue that it is worse to kill an 80 year old who has so much experience and wisdom etc thatthey have contributed/ contribute to society, rather than a small child you have contributed nowt.
Going down that road gets you to a discussion of the relative merits of individuals and their worth.
Is murdering a doctor worse than murdering a street sweeper?
Quite. The age of the victim is irrelevant.
I'm more concerned with people's views of the purpose of prison...
Going down that road gets you to a discussion of the relative merits of individuals and their worth.
Is murdering a doctor worse than murdering a street sweeper?
You could just as easily argue that it is worse to kill an 80 year old who has so much experience and wisdom etc thatthey have contributed/ contribute to society, rather than a small child you have contributed nowt.