Member

I am very sad to say that the presumption against child criminality was removed by a Labour Government with the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. I worked on that Act as a young lawyer in the Home Office. It drew an arbitrary line in the sand and rendered every 10 year-old criminally responsible, where previously it was assumed at 14. It has remained there ever since. While most of our European cousins have moved the other way, to an average age of 14, we sit alongside Switzerland with the ignoble distinction of having the lowest age of criminal responsibility in Europe. We even sit behind those bastions of European liberty, Belarus, Hungary and the Russian Federation, and below the global average of 12 years-old.