I remember reading somewhere that the two boys who killed Jamie Bulger had caught and tortured birds, cats etc. Not sure how much truth there is in it, or whether that led them to take Jamie, but it is a chilling thought.
I am not sentimental about animals, I have worked on a farm, and don’t go in for giving animals human feelings. But cruelty of any kind is unacceptable. There have always been people who are cruel, and those people don’t usually restrict their cruelty to just animals. But sometimes it is just thoughtlessness. I watched a bit of the documentary last night, Kids, Knives and Broken Lives and one kid was saying that it was gross stabbing someone, that he would never do that again, it was so disgusting. You thought, good he has learnt something important, but then he went on to say next time he’d get a gun and shoot them, so he didn’t get dirty!