www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208622...cked-cell-hours.html

The Police are now plumbing new depths. can you imagine if schoolteachers locked up kids when they misbehaved in Primary School in cupboards......which is roughly what we are talking about.

By criminalising Under 10s - we risk a whole generation of new criminals - perhaps the Police are protecting their future employment by making sure that some kids hate them and therefore do things to P them off !!!

Ridiculous. Our Police are out of control and are quite simply useless.

The photo makes her look older than 10, and quite a toughy. I wouldn't want to tangle with her. I'm a bit surprised there are still police cells without facilities. I was sure they'd all been upgraded before now.

That said, the police should have been quicker checking her age and contacting the parents. She did commit an assault, but they could have handled things better.

She does look rough. But she is 10 years old. Children should be banned from cells until they are at least 12 and possibly 14 without an adult to be there.

Bizarrely you cant go into a venue if you are under 14 and if you are 14 - 16 you have to be accompanied by an adult.

This makes a mockery of all laws to do with children.

It is child abuse in my view. Putting a child in a cell does no favours to anyone. It is false imprisonment at its very worst.

I hope a lawyer sees this story and gets the family some compensation then the Police might stop doing this. It sounds as if they are doing it regularly.

At what age is criminal responsibility in the UK ? How can they take DNA and fingerprints etc from someone under that age ? without permission from their parents. ?

It's funny, when I was brought up I was taught not to stroke dogs I didn't know.
Mind you, when I was 10 I wasn't hanging around with gangs of 20 other people aged 15/16 like she was reported to have been.
I also had respect for my elders and would never had answered back never mind slapping and pushing someone.
Unfortunately criminal apologists like BR are the reason kids can say and do what they like now while if adults say anything they get called "peados" and dragged away by police and later on get attacked by these kids "parents".

Will this child learn from her mistakes? No, she'll just know her rights and sue the police next time she does it......

The comments at the Mail seem to be very much pro police on this.

I believe the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years so I doubt that any lawyer would be able to get her compensation. She did attack someone, so it was right for her to be shown that there are consequences. It could have been handled better, but I think children are rather over-protected these days. Something between the two extremes would be about right, but we certainly must not send out the message that children can physically attack an adult and get away with it.

Emma Bee wrote:
I believe the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years so I doubt that any lawyer would be able to get her compensation. She did attack someone, so it was right for her to be shown that there are consequences. It could have been handled better, but I think children are rather over-protected these days. Something between the two extremes would be about right, but we certainly must not send out the message that children can physically attack an adult and get away with it.

Agree fully with everything you say.

A punishment now may prevent further decline in this person.

are people assuming that hat has been printed is the truth ?

How can we know whether this girl did anything or not..? certainly not from a police report or a so-called witness.

Doesn't mean there aren't some nasty little kids out there but I reckon once you have to start handcuffing 10 year olds (or 5 year olds in the US) society has lost it's moral compass.

Sure there are gangs of aimless youths out there but it's the politician's fault..and always will be.

I watched a fascinating doco last night on the state of youth detention in NSW jails with a hideous hard right 'lock-em-up' attorney general who has changed bail laws so everyone ends up in jail for about 10 weeks including most who are found innocent or get a suspended sentence.

There are something like 3000 under 17 year olds locked up in jail and each one costs $1M a year to keep there. Contrast that with the state of Victoria which spends about $50K a year on each kid rehabilitating them and has under 300 in it's jails.

Politicians and tabloids..they'll be the ruin of us all!!