The government is planning to lower the age of criminal responsibility to two after a toddler launched a violent attack on his sister with a strawberry blancmange and a sherry trifle.
'The whole nation will be horrified at this shocking crime,' said Home Secretary Alan Johnson. 'It's pure evil'.
The child, aged two, known only as toddler X, attacked his four-year-old sister Jane when she abruptly switched over a TV channel where her brother was watching an episode of EastEnders. 'He was engrossed in a rape scene when his sister switched over to see a murder she had been waiting for in The Bill,' the children's mother said. 'Of course, X naturally got upset and just reached for the blancmange and trifle we'd prepared for his grandfather's birthday party'.
One woman said she expected to start campaigning for a 'Jane's Law'. 'People have the right to know if blancmange offenders are living next door to them, or hanging around playgrounds waiting to strike. Feelings are running high.'
An angry vigilante group carrying placards reading 'Hang Blankmange' chased a boy carrying a raspberry blancmange and a blackcurrant jelly down Clapham High Street. The boy, it was later revealed, was on his way to a birthday party.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw said toddler X might have to be given a new identity if his real identity was revealed. 'At the moment we are resisting media demands that the 'Blancmange Beast' should be identified,' Mr Straw told the News of the World. 'The general public is understandably outraged, as am I, at this dreadful crime. It's pure evil. The whole country is in a state of shock and naturally wants to know a bit more about it.'
It is understood that toddler X came from a deprived area of Liverpool where the average size of a television screen is only 32 inches and without Dolby surround sound.
Mr Straw added:
'Regrettably, because of the current age of criminal responsibility, we cannot stage a big Old Bailey trial or even have toddler X photographed by police with an identity label round his neck to publish in the newspapers. We haven't even got a few grainy pictures of the attack to satisfy people's understandable curiosity about this monstrous deed. It’s all a bit of a bastard, really. Child crime of this nature is pure evil and quite fascinating.'
'It's pure evil,' agreed Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg.
