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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I, too, support the amendments and give the example of what went right when two young children were placed in secure accommodation and remained there until they were aged 18 and 19 respectively. I refer to the Bulger killers, Thompson and Venables. I dealt with an aspect of their case and saw the reports on them. They had been very well cared for in two separate places of secure accommodation where they able to learn of the appalling crime they had committed, to understand it and to move on from it with a great deal of help from, among others, psychiatrists, whose reports I saw. One has only to consider what might have happened to them if they had been slightly older, but well under the age of 18, and had gone in to one of the institutions that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, told us about today and in the past. With any luck, they will, under new identities, live respectable and responsible lives. Their rehabilitation was made possible in good, secure accommodation units.