Every day seems to bring another case to light - shootings, rampages, stabbings, gang activity. Is it something in the water? Are we sacrificing our children's sanity in order to make their teeth stronger? Or is it the utter lack of parenting ever since the second income became a necessity?

I have a confession to make: I have always been scared of children. Any horror movie just has to give a child an evil grin for me to be soiling myself. The first time was The Changeling. The worst time was The Ring. But now, even in day to day life, I find myself wondering which kid I see in the street is plucking the wings off flies and kicking neighborhood puppies. I wonder which kid is going to be the next Jamie Bulger murderer.

Who's that, you ask? You don't remember what happened to little 2-year-old Jamie Bulger back in 1993? Well, here's a sampling of what was done to him by Jon Venebles and Robert Thompson, both aged 10.

The youngsters took Bulger on a two-and-a-half-mile walk. At one point they led him to a canal, where James sustained some injuries to his head and face, after apparently being dropped to the ground. Later on in their journey, a witness reported seeing James being kicked in the ribs by one of the boys to encourage him along.

During the entire walk the two boys and James were seen by 38 people, some of whom noticed an injury to the infant's head and later recalled that he seemed distressed. Others reported that James appeared happy and was seen laughing, the boys seemingly alternating between hurting and distracting him. A few members of the public challenged the two older boys but they claimed that they were looking after their younger brother, or that he was lost and that they were taking him to the police station, and were allowed to continue on their way. They eventually led Bulger to a section of railway line near Walton.

At this location, one of the boys threw blue modelling paint on James's face. They kicked him and hit him with bricks, stones and a 22lb (10kg) iron bar. Before they left him, the boys laid James across the train tracks and weighed his head down with rubble. Two days later, on Sunday of the same week, Bulger's body was discovered. A pathologist later testified that James had died before his body was run over by a goods train.

This article doesn't mention the objects that had been inserted into his rectum.

Anyway, I brought this heinous act to your attention because of this article I read today. I doubt I need to point out that something's seriously wrong with the kids in England - where they don't flouridate the water, by the way.

Specially-trained police are interviewing six children about allegations that one of them - a five-year-old boy - was abducted by the others and taken to a busy park where he was left hanging from a tree in a litter-strewn patch of woodland called Devil's Ditch.

Three boys and two girls, aged 11 and 12, spent last night at a police station, being questioned on suspicion of attempted murder because of the scale of the younger child's injuries.

Severe bruising round his neck may have been made by a rope noose, said police in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, potentially corroborating early accounts when the boy was found close to his nearby home dazed and in tears.

A friend of his family called police who later found more bruising on his body, although he was discharged yesterday after overnight treatment at Dewsbury district hospital.

Parents, if your kids turn out like this, there is no one to blame but yourselves. If you have children, try parenting them, instead of using Grand Theft Auto to babysit them. You breed 'em, you're to blame if they screw up.