General Chat

Don't know if this has already been put on. Three youths have been charged with his murder and will go to court tomorrow.

It is about time that the person/people responsible were brought to justice

Thank goodness for that and let us hope they go to prison for a long time. It will not bring Damilola back but perhaps his parents may feel that they have received some justice. Ann

Only one of the three has been named so far as the others, 2 brothers are too young. How awful that they were all so young,when this terrible crime was committed.

Probably what was a prank/bullying, went too far........but terrible just the same........

It's fantastic news.... I hope the get what they deserve!

Thing is it's the way things are going. More and more these type of crimes are committed by very young people. Really think things need to be taken back to basics. Theres no discipline. Nobody is allowed to use any form of force and everything is going wrong. Where do we go from here??

Yes,I caught the news,My heart really goes out to that poor little boy and his family.They had such hopes of a new life here.Rose

Di,when I was very young we had no TV or Video games etc.a trip to the pictures on a Sat.morning was mostly Cowboys and Indians. Now our children live in a violent world with daily examples of violence shown as entertainment.Exposure to this over a period of time desensitises those who view. In the same way the only examples theyoung have of how families behave and interact,apart from their own families, is from TV soaps.These are again very poor examples of the real world and give our children a very distorted perspective of life.Children learn by example. I worked for 16 years in HMP Service and I saw daily the results of desentization. WE HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AS A NATION FOR OUR YOUNG AND CLEAN UP OUR ACT. It is known that the two boys who murdered the toddler had themselves seen pornographic films since their own early years which showed scenes of S&M. They were curious and acted out this beastiality for themselves. Horrific though their crime was-Who was really to blame? -Rose

I have noticed with great interest the various comments on different threads over the last few days dealing with our growing concerns about the deterioration in the behaviour of the young and our society as a whole as it is perceived by us. There is a sayining-THE PENDULUM SWINGS- I think it was Rupert Bear,who commented yesterday about this lack of respect and self control being as a result of the MORE LIBERAL ATTITUDES towards offenders from the 60 onwards. We have certainly seen this shift in attitude from punishment,for punishments sake to an attempt to understand why crime happens and to link it to deprivation etc. All I can comment on is my own experience through my work and my close involvement with criminals. THEY DESPISE THE LIBERAL ATTITUDES.They laugh at the do-gooders, they will take advantage of anything they see as weakness.They see liberal attitudes as weakness and put two fingers up at those who are here to administer law and attempt to keep order. Society has been complaining for years about the situation and govt. are giving lip service to cleaning up crime.THE PENDULUM IS BEGINNING TO MOVE BACK IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. It will be slow but we will see a tightening of attitudes.What we have to do is show solidarity and keep up the pressure-Rose

I so hope so Rose. I have three children the youngest a 10 year old boy, this world we are living in frightens the life out of me

Di,Your children will grow up into great adults because they have you as a parent.They will learn to be discerning and will make value judgements about life. The problems come from the poor parenting skills and a general acceptance of a low level of behavoiur by we the public. It happened in America when TV was introduced in to families before we had it in UK. It was easier for parents to sit and watch Tv then to get off their backsides and go and see what their children were doing We on the Island had a problem with drug trafficing in one of our small parks.My elderly friend was walking one evening when a girl obviously waiting for her supplier tried to bully her out of the park.Pam camehome and told us all.We went mob handed,all of the women in the street and sat there in the park.We did it until the trafikers stopped coming. You can take back control if you stick together.-Rose

I do hope that this time they have the right ones and that they get appropriate punishment. a lot of our problems are caused by the 'softly softly' approach of the courts. if youngsters saw that the punishment was harsh they just might stop and think. Ann Glos