Suffolk police are seeking the families of two boys aged seven and 12 who held a woman at knifepoint before stealing her car.
The incident happened when a woman in her sixties was threatened with a knife in Ipswich in the east of England at around 6:25 p.m. on Saturday, according to The Telegraph.
The boys allegedly targetted the pensioner as she pulled into her driveway before one of them allegedly jumped into the back of her car and threatened her with a blade, telling her to get out of the vehicle. The boys then drove off in the Mazda 5 and the vehicle was later found abandoned. The victim is said to have been shaken, but uninjured.
Suffolk’s elected Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), Tim Passmore, said: “I have never seen anything like this before. The concerning thing is these two were so young.
“I don’t understand how a seven and a 12-year-old get hold of a knife and then use it to threaten a woman.
“There are parents or an organisation out there who need to take responsibility for these children more seriously.”
The force released descriptions of the boys, saying the older one, aged around 12, is between 4’10” and 5’2″ and was wearing blue shorts with a multi-coloured t-shirt, while the younger boy, estimated to be around seven, was between 4’8″ and 5’1″, was wearing dark shorts and a blue, buttoned-up shirt, and had a “stockier build”. Both were described as having dark hair and dark eyes.
Neighbours in Westbury Road, where the car-jacking took place, were disturbed by the incident, with one saying they would be more cautious getting in and out of their car while another one told newspaper: “How do children that age even know how to drive?”
The age of criminal responsibility in England is ten, so the younger child cannot be arrested. However, there are other ways to punish, including an enforced ‘local order curfew’ where they cannot leave the house unaccompanied between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Last month, 5 News revealed through Freedom of Information requests that there were a total of 1,144 knife possession offences in schools in England, Wales, and Scotland where the suspect was a child over a 12-month period, with four-year-olds amongst those caught with the weapon.
David Simmons, who set up the charity Changing Lives, told Sky News of an incident where he had been threatened by a six-year-old with a knife while working at a school in north London.
Mr Simmons said: “He was threatening other staff members and saying that he was going to stab them so I’ve gone over trying to calm this child down.
“He’s then said he’s going to stab me and kill me. At that age you just wouldn’t have thought that a six-year-old should be doing that. Why were they doing that?”