A panel convened by the Bar Council will recommend this week that the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales be raised from 10 to 14, according to reporting by The Observer UK. The review concluded that prosecuting children from the age of 10 undermines public safety and increases the likelihood that young offenders go on to reoffend, creating more victims rather than fewer.
Kirsty Brimelow, chair of the Bar Council, told The Observer that the minimum age has remained unchanged for more than six decades, leaving England and Wales increasingly isolated internationally. She noted that age ten is the lowest threshold in Europe, far below countries such as Italy and Germany, where the age is set at 14, the most common threshold worldwide. The United Nations committee monitoring the Convention on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly urged the same change. Scotland’s threshold currently stands at 12.
Brimelow rejected the suggestion that raising the age amounts to leniency, telling the paper that a higher threshold is not soft on crime but smart on crime. She argued that the proposal would replace what she described as ineffective criminalisation of young children with interventions evidence shows are more likely to change behaviour, protect the public, and reduce future victims, adding that being tough on children is not the same as being tough on the causes of crime.
The Observer notes that any move to raise the threshold is likely to prove politically contentious. Successive governments have avoided revisiting the age of criminal responsibility, wary of public backlash linked to the 1993 murder of James Bulger by two ten-year-old boys, a case that has shaped policy debate on youth justice for more than thirty years. In its recent white paper on youth justice, the government said it would carefully consider the Bar Council’s findings, and Justice Secretary David Lammy told The Observer he would examine the panel’s work in detail. Lammy acknowledged the complexity of the issue, noting that a small proportion of very young children have committed horrific crimes, a pattern he traced back to the Bulger case, and said any change would need to be approached carefully and sensitively.
Brimelow acknowledged that the Bulger killing remains an emotionally powerful case but stressed that such extreme violence by children is exceptionally rare. She framed the central policy question as whether rare instances of extreme child offending should dictate the threshold applied to all children, or whether such cases could instead be addressed through a non-criminal system that still protects the public and acknowledges the harm caused.
According to data cited in the report, 233 children aged 10 to 12 entered the criminal justice system for the first time in the year to March 2025, with only one receiving a custodial sentence. Brimelow was clear that children who commit violent offences would still face punishment under a revised system, telling The Observer that the proposal does not envision teenagers free of consequences, but rather a different process designed to both punish and protect the public outside the criminal justice system.
The Observer also cites Home Office data showing that two-thirds of young offenders go on to commit further crimes, and that 80 percent of persistent adult offenders first entered the justice system as children. Brimelow said children convicted between the ages of 10 and 13 are likely to become the most persistent offenders, with longer and more prolific criminal careers, arguing that early entry into the criminal justice system tends to place young people on a path toward more serious offending later in life.
Scientific evidence formed a central part of the panel’s reasoning. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University and a member of the Bar Council panel, told the paper that understanding of brain development has been transformed since the minimum age law was passed in 1963. She said the brain remains very immature at age 10, reinforcing the case that the current threshold is set too low, and pointed to evidence on adolescent social-cognitive development, including heightened risk-taking in peer settings and difficulty inhibiting impulsive behaviour in emotionally charged situations, as directly relevant to the debate.
Dr Richard Church, chair of the adolescent forensic psychiatry special interest group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, welcomed the proposed change, telling The Observer that conviction for a criminal offence at a young age significantly shapes how a young person comes to see themselves and how others perceive them. He said current arrangements serve neither the public nor victims well, nor do they meet the needs of young children who come into conflict with the law. Enys Delmage, a consultant in adolescent forensic psychiatry, went further, describing the existing threshold as out of step with modern scientific understanding of brain development and the emerging capacities of very young children. Delmage said he would strongly advocate raising the age in line with other countries, arguing that if the genuine goal is reducing reoffending, the evidence points consistently toward help rather than harm.
