Six-year-old Bristol children committing crime

Three six-year-old children were among more than 70 boys and girls under 10 suspected of committing crimes in the Bristol area.

The alleged offending covers a wide range of crimes including burglary, theft, assault and criminal damage.

Sexual offences also account for six of the 73 incidents looked at by Avon and Somerset Constabulary in the financial year 2008-09.

According to these latest statistics, the youngest offenders in Avon and Somerset were three six-year-olds.

Two were boys and one was a girl, investigated for alleged crimes of theft, criminal damage and common assault.

The full list of offending is as follows: 26 incidents of criminal damage; 16 of common assault; 11 of actual bodily harm; seven thefts; six non-specified sexual offences; five "other violent" crimes; two burglaries.

Apart from the three six-year-olds, no specific ages were given.

The statistics, revealed under the Freedom of Information Act, do not show whether any other kind of action was taken against the children.

The law states that no one under 10 can be charged with a crime, so none of them would have been punished by the courts.

Five of the alleged offenders were girls, the other 68 were boys. The figures come shortly after similar FOI statistics were published for alleged crimes by the over-70s in the Bristol area.

As shown in the Evening Post on Friday, 223 arrests were made against pensioners in the past two years for a large number of offences including drug dealing, rape, conspiracy to murder and grievous bodily harm. The oldest person to be taken into custody was a 99-year-old man suspected of burglary, followed by a 92-year-old man arrested for a positive breath test.

The primary age crime figures follow revelations about the number of stabbing incidents in Bristol schools.

As revealed in the Post last month, schoolchildren as young as five have stabbed other pupils with pencils, scissors and even a crayon. There have been seven stabbing incidents at schools in the city since September 2005.

One involved a five-year-old being stabbed by another pupil with a crayon, causing a puncture would.

In another a 10-year-old at a primary school was cut with a knife by another child. Children in the other incidents were five, nine and 13, and one victim was a teacher.