YouTube boy brawlers 'safe and well'
Two young English boys featured on the YouTube website being goaded into fighting each other have been identified and are safe and well, police said today.
The 12-year-old boys were seen in footage posted on the video-sharing website trading punches, kicks and headbutts as a man filming the attack encouraged them.
A 21-year-old man, from Crawley, West Sussex, who was arrested yesterday on suspicion of aiding and abetting an assault remains in custody, a Sussex Police spokesman said.
Inquiries were continuing as the suspect faced further questioning today, the spokesman added.
Police said the images were “appalling” as they launched a joint investigation with officials from the West Sussex Young Persons’ Services team.
Officers had appealed for information to identify the two boys and the amateur film-maker, who is heard sniggering behind the camera as the pair fight.
During one section, one of the boys looks into the camera and asks: “Kicking is allowed, isn’t it?”
And one of the boys shouts “He’s crying” after punching the second child in the face.
The video, entitled 'Lethal Fight (Crawley)', is believed to have been shot in a bedroom in the West Sussex town and posted on YouTube six days ago.
A second video, called 'Lethal Fight 2', was also posted on the video-sharing website and is believed to involve the same two boys fighting in the same bedroom.
Sussex Police were alerted to the videos, which have since been removed from YouTube, by the Brighton Argus newspaper, which offered a £1,000 (€1,266) reward for a successful prosecution.
The footage emerged after four women were spared prison in April last year for forcing two toddlers to fight “like dogs” in front of a video camera.
Zara Care, along with her sisters Serenza and Danielle Olver and her mother Carole Olver, received a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years after pleading guilty to child cruelty charges at Plymouth Crown Court.
The four, from Plymouth, Devon, were also ordered to carry out 100 hours of community service and banned from working with children.
The women goaded a two-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, to hit each other and when one did not fight, they called him a “wimp” and a “faggot”.
The fight was filmed on a home video recorder and was found by chance by the children’s father, who had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.
The original sentence handed down to the women was criticised by Conservative MP Mike Penning, who asked the Attorney General to review the punishments.
After the review, Lord Goldsmith decided not to refer the sentences to the Court of Appeal.
