Letter: Free Jamie's killers

Sir: Now surely is the time, as Sir David Ramsbotham has said, to release the boys guilty of James Bulger's killing. For if not now, there never will be a time to do so. It will be increasingly hard for them to integrate into society as time elapses until it becomes impossible.

One has to ask whether it is right and just to incarcerate in perpetuity two kids who cannot have known and thought through the consequences of what they did, dreadful though it was and is to us adults. There are adult murderers released from our prisons after a few years for politically convenient reasons, and these two should be freed for humanitarian reasons.

Perhaps Jesus' words on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," should be remembered. They have expiated a sin. Let them find, hopefully, a little human kindness and forgiveness left in our society.

Dr JAMES HUTCHISON

Birmingham