LONDON — Two brothers aged 10 and 11 were accused today of the attempted murder of two other boys — becoming some of the youngest people ever charged with such a serious crime in Britain.
The victims, 11 and 9, say they were robbed and beaten Saturday in an area of fields and woodland in Edlington, northern England.
Neighbors said the younger victim was found wandering a road covered in blood. The older boy was discovered semiconscious in a wooded ravine nearby. Neighbors who found them told British media that they appeared to have been beaten, slashed and burned with cigarettes.
The 11-year-old victim was in intensive care with serious head injuries. The 9-year-old needed surgery on his arm.
Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Chris Hartley said each suspect faced two charges of attempted murder and two of robbery. They are accused of stealing a mobile phone and $7 from the victims.
Neither the suspects nor the victims is being publicly identified because of their age. The defendants appeared briefly in court today and were ordered detained pending trial.
Local authorities confirmed the two suspects had been in foster care in Edlington, a quiet former mining village on the edge of Doncaster, 150 miles north of London.
The age of criminal responsibility in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is 10, among the lowest in Europe. In Scotland it is currently being raised from eight to 12. In the United States, the age of responsibility for federal crimes is 10.
The case has stirred memories for some of the death of James Bulger, a 2-year-old abducted from a shopping center near Liverpool in 1993 by two 10-year-olds who punched him, beat him with bricks and hit him with an iron bar before leaving his body on a railroad track.
His killers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were convicted of murder and spent eight years in youth custody. They were released in 2001 with new identities.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office said the latest crime was a “disturbing but singular event” and should not be used to draw conclusions about the state of society.
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