Responsible Child is back on the BBC iPlayer

The Liberal Democrat peer Navnit Dholakia has long been campaigning to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Britain. It is currently 10, which is low by international standards.

Before a general election was called for last December, Lord Dholakia had succeeded in taking a bill through the Lords to raise the age to 12.

This debate was dramatised in the play Responsible Child, which received a BAFTA nomination for the best single television drama of 2019.

Responsible Child has reappeared on the BBC iPlayer, where it will be available for at least the next year.

Later. The play has now been nominated for an International Emmy and its young lead Billy Barratt, who had just celebrated his 12th birthday when filming began, has been shortlisted for the best male actor award.

Lord Dholakia's campaign to raise the age of criminal responsibility

The BBC play Responsible Child, shown just before Christmas, questioned the low age of criminal responsibility in Britain and in particular our practice of trying children as young as 10 in front of a jury as though they were adults.

This is a cause the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Dholakia has long been fighting. Before the general election was called he had succeeded in taking a bill through the Lords to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 and he has promised to continue this campaign.

Here he is moving the second reading of his bill in September 2017 and talking about the trial of the killers of James Bulger:

Most foreign commentators were amazed that children of that age should be tried in an adult Crown Court. They questioned whether such young children could really understand the complexities of a lengthy criminal prosecution and trial; whether they should have appeared in the full glare of media coverage; whether they understood all the issues and the language of the trial; whether they could give sensible instructions to their lawyers; and whether their decision not to give evidence was simply because they were frightened of speaking in such a setting. 

Even though some changes have been made to court processes involving children since then, it remains true that exposing such young children to a criminal trial is no way to achieve justice. 

The scene from Responsible Child above - click on the image to go to a video on Twitter - conveys well the absurdity of pretending that a traumatised child can participate meaningfully in his own trial.

It is also reminds us how good the performance by the young lead, Billy Barratt, was. Judging by Twitter, his emotional scenes towards the end of the play made the nation cry, but here he is beautifully understated.

If you read Lord Dholakia's speech in full - the whole debate is worth reading - you will find that he says:

A 30 year-old with the mental age of a 10 year-old child would probably be regarded as unfit to plead, so why do we see a child of 10 as capable of participating in the criminal justice process?

I suspect he and the writer of Responsible Child had spoken to the same experts.

Responsible Child and moral philosophy

Lord Bonkers' Well-Behaved Orphans were originally a bit of a joke against myself.

Because of an unhappy period in my own childhood, I used to be overfond of Oliver Twist and other tales of wronged children.

I have largely cured myself of that taste, but still watched Responsible Child this week.

There is no doubt where the play's sympathies lay, but as Jasper Rees said in the Telegraph:

there was no one making the case for trying children in adult courts. Perhaps that’s because there isn’t a good one to make.

Another Telegraph article, this one behind its paywall, reveals:

Lord Navnit Dholakia, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, has campaigned for a Private Members’ Bill that would see 11 and 12-year-olds tried in a new court “specially designated for young people” to help them understand what is going on. 

“Psychologists and others have found that [children below 12] are not capable of understanding the seriousness of what they’ve done, it passes beyond them,” he says. “I’m very keen that there is a rehabilitative process.”

The play was inspired in part by the case of 14-year-old Jerome Ellis, who was sentenced to six years in detention for his part in the killing of his stepfather.

The writers do not seem to have strayed far from the facts of that case. A report this week in the Sun said the boy's teachers:

gave witness statements which revealed Jerome was often hungry and that he was a young carer for his mother and his siblings.

By making Raphael - or Ray - only 12 in Responsible Child they tipped the scales a little, but that change may have been made because they found such an extraordinary actor of that age - Billy Barratt - to cast.

You could also mention that, like Oliver Twist himself, Ray sometimes appeared to be from a higher social class than those around him.

One thing that interested me is that the play raised an issue in moral philosophy that has always troubled me.

Altruism is sometimes presented as the greatest good, but to me it is not necessarily a good thing. In the play, Ray took part in the killing of his stepfather out of love and concern for his older brother.

It turns out that one can do wrong out of love for others just as much as one can do wrong out of self-love.

I usually attribute that insight to Joseph Butler, though I have no idea where he said it.

Finally, a Trivial Fact of the Day. As has been widely reported, Billy Barratt is the grandson of Shakin' Stevens.

Simon Hughes is not Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Stephen Tall reminds us of an important but subtle distinction in a Comment is Free article on the Guardian website:

Simon's full title is Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons. (Navnit Dholakia is the party's "other deputy leader" representing Lib Dem peers in the Lords.) He is not, therefore, deputy leader of the party, though that is how he is styled in the media.

He does not say this to denigrate Simon, but to emphasise that his recent and well-founded concern about the Coalition's housing and social security proposals should be seen in a proper light.

Mind you, this is a distinction that the party has been happy to blur when it has suited it. As Stephen goes on to point out, we were happy to describe Vince Cable as our "deputy leader" when he was at the height of his popularity.

It also occurs to me that the Liberal Democrats have rather a lot of senior but slightly ill-defined positions. As well as a deputy leader the parliamentary party in the Commons also has a chair. And we are currently electing a new President of the party as a whole.

Do we need all these posts and are we clear what the role of each is?

Mentioning the chair of the parliamentary party reminds me that when Mark Oaten held this post he was always described in the press as "Chair of the Liberal Democrats". For some reason this confusion has not plagued later holders of the post.

BritBlog Roundup 162

Welcome to the Easter edition. What with everyone being busy eating chocolate and skiing, we are a bit short of nominations this week. But, no doubt, what we lack in quantity is more than made up in quality. Thanks to all those who did flag up a posting or two. Blogging The Debatable Land informs us that LOL-Blairs are the latest thing in the British blogosphere. The example below is taken from Pickled Politics... Looking at competition between blogs and the mainstream media, Iain Dale asks if size always matters. Clive Soley reports on an interesting development - a group blog by members of the House of Lords. You can find it at Lords of the Blog and the peers contributing are:

• Lord (Clive) Soley himself;
• Lord (Philip) Norton of Louth;
• Baroness (Frances) D’Souza;
• Lord (David) Lipsey;
• Lord (Paul) Tyler;
• Lord (Navnit) Dholakia;
• Lord (Robin) Teverson;
• Baroness (Lola) Young of Hornsey;
• Baroness (Elaine) Murphy.

The Arts 

Another blogging peer - Ros Scott, writing at Because Baronesses are People Too - looks forward to the television adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe books and mourns Anthony Minghella. The Daily (Maybe) believes George Galloway is a Byron for our times. And Liberal England (I told you I was short of nominations) speculates on what happened to Enid Blyton's Famous Five in later life. 

London Mayoral Election 

The Daily (Maybe) (again) looks at the more leftward-leaning candidates, while Sian Berry defends her decision to tell Green supporters to give their second preference to Ken Livingstone. It's the newts, you know. 

Public Services 

Burning Our Money is sceptical about what will be achieved by the government's £52bn programme to rebuild the nation's schools. Random Acts of Reality discovers rudeness and inefficiency in an unnamed hospital. And Unmitigated England reports on an incident that tells us a lot about our glorious new privatised railway system. 

Environment 

Ruscombe Green tackles the menace of heavy lorries. And Philobiblon reviews Speaking for Nature: Women and Ecologies of Early Modern England by Sylvia Bowerbanks. 

Odds and Sods 

You know what it is like: you work out a series of subheadings, only to find there are still some postings left over. So here they are. A Very Public Sociologist considers Britishness in great depth. Michael Meacher turns his mind to Iraq, five years after George W. Bush claimed victory. These days being bisexual is not enough. Writing on the f word, Laura Woodhouse explores the concept of the "cisexual". And Elizabeth Chadwick: Living the History looks at medicine in the 12th century. 

Next Week 

So there you have it. Next week's roundup will appear on Philobiblon. All nominations to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com please. Goodbye.

Camden Lib Dems' cookbook: "Serve a Liberal Helping"

Camden Liberal Democrats' new cookbook, Serve a Liberal Helping, will be published in September. This collection of recipes by Lib Dem luminaries and members, say the publishers, "captures the essence of the party's energy and joie-de-vivre". They suggest it is also the ideal cookbook for those who love to share great food in the midst of busy lives. Within its pages you can:

• learn from assorted members of parliament and councillors how to cook great food in a hurry;
• enjoy Charles Kennedy's recipe for a breakfast smoothie;
• discover the festive secret Lord Navnit Dholakia has not told his friends to this day;
• read an old family recipe contributed by Lord Bill Rodgers, never before written down;
• find out what Lembit Opik MP likes to nibble while watching Question Time.

More details, including ordering information, on the Camden Lib Dems' Website.