Minimum age of criminal responsibility 'should be raised from ten to 14,' barristers claim
The minimum age of criminal responsibility should be raised from ten to 14, a legal group representing barristers has said.
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England and Wales have become "an outlier in how we use the criminal justice system to treat children" with a system that "funnels them towards further crime and prison",the Bar Council said.
The organisation, which describes itself as the voice of the barrister profession in the two nations, has been reviewing whether the current age of criminal responsibility remains appropriate.
Both the Law Commission and England’s children’s commissioner have backed the Bar Council’s recommendation.
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The current age means children who are ten can be arrested and charged with a crime. Children aged between ten and 17 are dealt with by youth courts and sent to secure centres for young people rather than adult prisons.
The Bar Council report, published on Sunday, said the age of ten "remains low by contemporary global standards".
The Bar Council said 14 is the lowest age recommended by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) for children to be held criminally responsible, and is the most common age in operation worldwide.
Scotland raised the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 in 2019. Campaigners for a change have previously argued that the case of the murder of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool by ten-year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson in 1993 has led to a reluctance to increase the age of criminal responsibility.
Bar Council chairwoman Kirsty Brimelow acknowledged any debate about the age of criminal responsibility “brings back the memory of the James Bulger case”, but said while that case was "terrible and grave" it was also "exceptionally rare".
More recently, two boys were sentenced for the murder of Shawn Seesahai in Wolverhampton in 2023 when they were both aged 12.
At the time it was reported they were the UK’s youngest knife killers. In summer 2024, children as young as 12 were convicted in relation to widespread public disorder which broke out in the wake of the Southport murders.
The Bar Council report states that of the 1,590 children aged between ten and 14 found guilty of offences in the year to March 2025, just 22 were sentenced to immediate custody.
Ms Brimelow said: “As well as setting children on a separate track, which funnels them towards further crime and prison, this approach also produces inconsistencies within UK law.
"This report does not diminish the need for intervention and protection of the public. Rather, it asks whether criminalisation at such an early age is the most effective, proportionate or just response. It returns a definitive negative answer."
The report concludes that age 14 "provides a clear and developmentally informed threshold below which children are not rendered criminally culpable".I
Ms Brimelow added: "Mechanisms that reduce the number of children brought into the criminal justice system, through diversion as well as raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility, are less likely to result in an increase in crime amongst this cohort.
"Bringing children into the criminal justice system is more likely to result in further offending. Diversionary programmes are more beneficial to the individual child and to the public in terms of reducing future crime and attendant resources.
"It is also cost-effective financially as well as societally. Increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility is essential as it can tackle reoffending and prevent future victims of harm."
President of the Law Society of England and Wales, Mark Evans, said: "We support raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years; the current age of 10 years is far too low.
"This would be an important step towards aligning the system with evidence on child development and ensuring more effective responses to children who do wrong. We call on the government to accept this proposal as part of its youth justice reforms."