What is wrong with people; have they lost all sense of right and wrong? TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
AFP
Child welfare groups and politicians expressed outrage on Thursday after a video emerged of two eight-year-old boys fighting in a cage as hundreds of adults watched.
The video, shot at Greenlands Labour Club in Preston earlier this month, shows the two boys grappling without protective padding or head gear as a 250-strong adult audience watches.
Children’s charity NSPCC said the video was “disturbing”, but Lancashire police said it had “looked into this matter fully and there are no issues for us to pursue”.
Nick Hartley, the father of one of the boys in the video, insisted his son was at no risk.
“He loves the sport. It’s not one bit dangerous, it’s a controlled sport. He likes to do it, he’s never forced to do it, he wants to do it, so leave him to do it,” Hartley told the BBC.
“He’ll never get hurt, it’s a controlled sport. He could never get hurt.
“Until he gets a bit older and he starts doing physical contact, kicking and punching, then maybe, but at his age it’s wrestling, like grappling.”
He denied the children were cagefighting — an often violent sport whose popularity has spread rapidly in recent years through widespread exposure on cable television.
“The children weren’t doing cage fighting, they were doing what they call grappling. The cage fighting only comes when they’re older,” he said in a separate interview with Sky News.
A Lancashire Police spokesman said it had looked into whether any crime had been committed but would take no further action. The club’s licence was in order to stage such events.
Chris Cloke, head of child protection awareness at children’s charity NSPCC, said: “We would strongly discourage parents from letting their children take part in this kind of fighting.
“It’s quite disturbing that some of those involved in the bouts were as young as eight, an age when they are still developing, physically and mentally.
“The organisers of these activities should think very carefully before allowing children to be involved when they are egged on to inflict violence.”
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the video as “barbaric”.
“Getting more young people doing sport is great but I do ask myself whether it really does have to be in a cage,” Hunt told the BBC.
