BRITAIN is being hit by a wave of child crime, with figures showing the under-13s bucking the national trend of falling levels of offending.

According to the Youth Justice Board (YJB), crimes by children aged 10-12 rose 6% last year. The figure compares with a small fall in offences by 13 to 17-year-olds, the group usually identified with child yobbery.

Some experts say the rise in child crime is due to poor parenting and broken homes. Others point to the police targeting younger children to punish them before they try more serious offending.

“It is obvious a 10 or 11-year-old would not be committing these sort of offences if the parenting and the family environment was spot on. So that has got to be a contributing factor,” said Chris Hume, director of practice and performance at the YJB.

Home Office data out this week is expected to show overall crime is falling, although muggings continue to rise.

Some of the sharpest increases in child crime have been among those aged 10, the minimum age of criminal responsibility. Their crimes in 2004-05 included 448 violent offences, a 33% rise on the year before. The problem has been highlighted in recent months by phenomena such as “happy slapping” in which children use a mobile phone to film friends beating up victims.

A typical attack occurred last December at Bullers Wood school in Chislehurst, Kent. Rachael Neville, 12, was taken to hospital after she was kicked and stamped on more than 20 times by another pupil while others filmed the assault.

She suffered head injuries, a black eye and heavy bruising. Police dropped the case at the request of Rachael’s parents.

Last year Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, called for more juvenile offenders to be put into custody and said children younger than 10 should be held responsible for crimes. He described juvenile “yobbery” as a “raging social cancer tearing away at Britain”.

According to the YJB statistics, there were 19,117 offences by children aged 10-12 between April 2004 and March 2005, a rise of 6% on the previous year. Over the same period, total crimes by children aged 13-17 fell 1% to 267,986.

The figures — covering England and Wales — show criminal damage by 10-year-olds up 11% and theft by 12%.

The YJB said it had spent £45m over the past two years working with parents and children — some as young as eight — to try to prevent them offending. “There has been a gap in terms of helping 10 to 12-year-olds in the past,” said Bob Ashford, head of prevention for the YJB. “If we can intervene at an early stage we contribute to reducing crime at a later age.”

The board said, however, that the rising figures did not necessarily reflect a real rise in crime. It argued that police were now more likely to charge young children where previously they issued a caution.

The YJB also released regional figures. Newcastle upon Tyne has the highest rate of child offending, with one offence committed by a 10 to 17-year-old for every 82 people. The lowest was Kensington and Chelsea, with a rate of one offence for every 455 people.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• All that glitters is not sold in Wright’s world
• Believe it or not, Big Brother is your friend