I recall reading in a history of a certain king of England that he once went to a town to sit in judgement on matters in the local court. One case concerned parents who had brought a child accused of the murder of their child to the court, demanding he be executed. The king investigated what had happened - different in type from the cases above, it's true. A group of boys, including the victim, had been engaged in throwing large stones at each other, and one had unfortunately hit the victim in the head. The king, in giving judgement, pointed out that the boys had been behaving as boys, and that in slightly different circumstances, it could have been the defendant who died, and the victim before the court. It was not proper to try the defendant as an adult murderer. The parents of the dead boy were not happy, of course.












If King John can take a measured view of child responsibility - and it would be interesting to know what he would have made of the malice of the distorted minds of the recent cases - maybe we should not be so ready to throw around accusations of evil. And he would know about that.

Penny