Notorious rape and murder cases by children highlight shock reality

THE most famous and horrific case involving children was the murder of t wo- y e a r - old J a mes Bulger on Merseyside in February 1993. He was abducted, tortured and killed by two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.

In another chilling case at the High Court in Glasgow last week, a 16-yearold – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was convicted of raping a seven-year-old boy while on a two-hour release from a secure residential unit.

This newspaper understands the teenager was 15 at the time of the offence.

The offender had been given unsuper- vised release for two hours each day before the attack in East Dunbartonshire in June last year. He had previously been under round-the-clock watch at a nearby care unit.

He was allowed out on his own despite him having inappropriately touched a 16-year-old boy just seven months before. The court heard that the freedom had allowed him to prowl the grounds of a primary school as it came out on the day of the attack. He had claimed he was going to the library.

When he saw the seven-year-old child looking for a lost phone he pretended to be a police officer, telling the boy he would help him find it. He then took him to a deserted graveyard and raped him. After the assault he choked his victim and warned him he would kill him if he told anyone about the abuse.

Sentencing him to 28 months in a young offenders’ institution, Lord Burns told him: “You are assessed as very high risk of committing sexual offending in future.” The offender was also placed on the sex offenders’ register.

The victim’s grandmother said: “How are they going to monitor the accused after he gets out? They never managed before.”