Not sure what you mean by "still mentally children" Bernard? They were ten, which I would have thought made them children, period. There was a slightly similar case in Sweden and the youngster in question didn't even go on trial (as Venables and Thompson would not have done in many countries around the world). There was no public outcry in Sweden; no baying for vengeance; no hysterical idiocy by people unconnected with the case and who should have known better. (Grown men, wholly unconnected with the case, assaulted a police van transporting the ten-year-olds Venables and Thompson!) And no-one believes Sweden is any less safe because it declined to punish the boy.

Bernard touched on a point that deserves more attention. No-one can seriously believe that two boys of the same unique evilness just happened, by outrageous coincidence, to cross paths in the same district of Liverpool. One obviously was the prime mover. Just as in the Brady-Hindley axis, it is reasonable to conjecture that one of them might never have transgressed at all, but for falling under the other's spell. I fear such niceties will be beyond the reasoning of any lynch mob that might track down either of these lads.