Petition Remove the automatic right of juvenile defendants to anonymity in Court

Under the Childrens & Young Persons Act 1933, defendants below the age of 18 cannot be named in media reports of Court proceedings. However, over the eighty years since this was enacted, increasing numbers of teenagers have been tried in the Courts and convicted of serious, violent crimes: murder, manslaughter, wounding, burglary, robbery, violent disorder and arson. While judges can and sometimes do lift reporting restrictions in particularly notorious cases, it is time for the public and the victims of this mindless violence to be given the knowledge and safety of knowing whose these yobs and thugs are, and for the them to be taught to accept the full public consequences of, and responsibilty for, their criminal acts. These violent youths are not "children" and they have no right to the protection of anonymity.