Letter: Raise age of responsibility

IN HER well-written article about criminalisation of children (Real Lives, 30 May), Dani Garavelli notes that in Scotland the case would have been dealt with by the Children's Panel. This would only have been the case had the boys agreed they committed the deed. In their Old Bailey trial they pleaded not guilty, so in Scotland a similar case may well have resulted in a criminal trial.

In the light of this case and others, there is a strong case for socially progressive governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales, to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 15, which works well in most other west European countries.

Malcolm Stewart, Edinburgh