- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 14 March 2010 11.27 GMT
Maggie Atkinson. Photograph: Mark Pinder
James Bulger's mother today called for the children's commissioner to be sacked after Dr Maggie Atkinson said the age of criminal responsibility should be raised and that the toddler's killers should not have stood trial because they were too young.
Denise Fergus described Atkinson's comments in a newspaper interview -– that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson could not have understood the full consequences of their actions – as "twisted and insensitive".
Atkinson described James's killing as "exceptionally unpleasant" but said it was wrong that Thompson and Venables, who were 10 in 1993 when they were charged with the boy's murder, were tried in an adult court.
Fergus said: "This woman owes James and me an apology for her twisted and insensitive comments. Then she should resign or be sacked. To say that his killers should not have been tried in an adult court is stupid. They committed an adult crime – a cold-blooded murder that was planned and premeditated – and they were tried accordingly."
She added: "It is a shock to people like Dr Atkinson that children can be truly evil by 10. But it is a fact and I fear there will be more of them and we need laws to be tightened up so we can deal with them."
Tonight Lady Butler-Sloss, the former judge who granted the killers anonymity in 2001, said that she had great sympathy with Atkinson's views but did not think that the public would accept her ideas.
"I do not believe the government, any government of any political persuasion, could introduce this at the moment.
"I have great sympathy with the children's commissioner but I believe it is unworkable because I do not think the public will accept it.
"The way I would like to go forward is to keep it as it is for the moment, because of public opinion, but to make it much more difficult to send such children to prison."
The Ministry of Justice said: "We do not intend to raise the age of criminal responsibility. It is not in the interests of justice, of victims, or the young people themselves, to prevent serious offending being challenged." It said custody for under-18s was "always a last resort", and only 3% of young offenders who are convicted receive a custodial sentence.
The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales was raised from eight to 10 in 1963. In the rest of the EU, 12-14 is more common. A 2003 UN convention on the rights of the child report called for the UK to raise the age of criminal responsibility "considerably".
Fergus met the justice secretary, Jack Straw, last week to discuss the return to custody of Venables, who was freed on licence in 2001 after serving eight years in detention. Straw has refused to confirm the details of why Venables was detained and has said only that he faces "very serious allegations".
Criminal barrister Felicity Gerry, a specialist in prosecuting and defending child offenders, said current laws already required Crown Prosecution Service lawyers to first decide whether a child understood that what they did was wrong.
"My view is that there is no need to change the age of criminal responsibility providing that prosecutors are applying the proper tests in deciding whether or not to prosecute," she said. "The current situation is that the prosecution of any particular child would depend on the specific circumstances in which the alleged crime was committed and whether it is in the public interest."
She said the burden was on the prosecutor to decide not just whether there was sufficient evidence for prosecution, but also to ask whether the child was fit to be tried, whether they understood what they did was wrong, and to look at the nature of the offence.
Until the late 1990s the law required proof that a child knew what they did was seriously wrong before a prosecution could take place.
Tory frontbencher Ken Clarke, who was home secretary at the time of the Bulger case, told BBC1's Andrew Marr show: "I do not actually agree with the children's commissioner but she obviously should not resign for expressing an opinion on a perfectly serious and quite difficult subject.
"I think Venables should be allowed a fair trial on whatever it is he might be charged with, I do think we ought to have some common sense on this subject. There is too much media. Newspapers and the media cannot replace judges and juries.
"This is a particularly difficult and anguished case and I still have confidence in the rule of law."
Atkinson told the Times yesterday: "The age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10 – that's too low, it should certainly be moved up to 12; in some European countries it is 14. The 'we are too worried about the parents' issue is something that runs like a thread through a number of cases. My constant song is 'listen to the children and young people'."
She said the Bulger killing was a "dreadful thing", and Venables and Thompson needed to be in a contained environment like a youth justice facility and given programmes to help them turn their lives around.
The shadow justice secretary, Dominic Grieve, said: "Changing the age of criminal responsibility is not the answer. We need fundamental reform to address the causes of offending by children, including family breakdown, poverty, gang culture and school discipline."
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "While we cannot expect justice on the hoof from jumpy politicians, after the general election it would be wise to review the age of criminal responsibility, taking into account standards set by the UN convention and international comparisons."