The spectre of the trial of the two boys who killed the toddler James Bulger 16 years ago loomed large over Sheffield Crown Court yesterday — with the result that there will be no repeat spectacle of two small boys in the dock for attempted murder.
That trial drew widespread condemnation, not least from the European Court of Human Rights; and yesterday the Crown Prosecution Service accepted the offers by the brothers of guilty pleas to lesser crimes of grievous bodily harm with intent, as well as to robbery and a sexual offence.
The CPS decision means that the child victims will avoid being put through the trauma of a trial that had no certainty of conviction, because of the high standard of proof required in attempted murder cases.
Second, the CPS said that the charge of grievous bodily harm with intent carries the same maximum sentence of life as attempted murder. The judge will therefore have “sufficient powers to sentence the defendants in accordance with the seriousness of their offending”, the CPS said in a statement. The lesser offence makes no difference to any likely arrangements for release.
The decision on whether to go ahead or not was down to the CPS. Adrian Lower, the head of the CPS complex casework unit for South Yorkshire and Humberside, said that “the need for these two young victims to relive in court the shocking events of their ordeal” was a key consideration.
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“In taking these decisions we are satisfied that the aggravating factors can still be put before the court and will be taken into consideration alongside any mitigating factors.”
Throughout, he said, the victims’ families had been consulted.
Sally O’Neill, QC, a criminal barrister who has handled many cases involving children, said: “Where children are involved, as witnesses, you strain every sinew to avoid a trial because it is such a traumatic experience to give evidence.
“If the court will have the same sentencing powers, I see no problem with it. It will have been discussed with the parents and carefully considered.”
She added: “It is important to guard against a kneejerk reaction in the case of a dreadful crime like this or throw the book at the defendants.
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“A balancing exercise must be carried out and a decision reached in everyone’s interests, which is not just those of the public but of the children — and that may include the child defendants, although some may not like to think it.”
Another QC, Peter Lodder, past chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said: “Attempted murder is a very difficult charge to prove. You have to show an intention to kill — it is a high standard.”
He agreed that a key consideration would be avoiding the ordeal of making the boys give evidence and the impact of a trial on them and the quality of evidence they would give.
The trial in 1993 of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, then both 11, in a case with similar horrific details to that yesterday, was subsequently condemned in Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 1999 that the trial was unfair because it was in public and subject to intensive press coverage.
The ruling did not affect their sentences but prompted reforms to reduce the trauma of a full-blown adult trial where children are involved.
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Public anger and grief may be diminished without a public hearing but it is not a case of letting the defendants off lightly; the interests of the victims themselves will be better served.