Responsible Child is based on true events and tells the story of Ray, a 12-year-old boy on trial for murder. Ray and his 23-year-old brother Nathan have been arrested after stabbing their mother’s business partner. Whatever the circumstances that led a child to kill, the law is clear: the age of criminal responsibility is 10, and Ray must stand trial in adult court at the age of 12. Responsible Child is told in two parts: the events leading up to the murder and the unfolding drama of the trial.
Responsible Child, written by Sean Buckley, who also wrote Skins, takes you inside a young boy’s experience with the legal system, asking powerful questions about responsibility and redemption. Responsible Child is inspired by the 2014 case of Jerome Ellis, 14, and his brother Joshua, 23, who murdered their stepfather with a knife while he lay on the sofa. In 2013, Neil Tulley, 54, was discovered with 65 stab wounds and his head nearly severed in their Bellfields, Surrey home. Here’s everything you need to know about Responsible Child True Story, including when it’ll be available to watch, and the true, real-life story that inspired the BBC2 film is even more harrowing.
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Responsible Child True Story
At the time of the attack, Mr. Tulley, who was seeing their mother Marie at the time, was “asleep or nearly asleep.” The attack was so terrible that he was almost beheaded. Jerome was found guilty of manslaughter due to loss of control and sentenced to six years in prison. Joshua, his older brother who suffered from depression, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 14 years in prison. Both siblings claimed that their stepfather was abusive and had threatened to kill Joshua, who was depressed. Because the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10, both brothers were tried as adults.
BAFTA-winning documentary filmmaker and Responsible Child director Nick Holt stated that he has wanted to tell this story since attending the Ellis brothers’ trial. Jerome had grown up with his father but had moved in with his mother a year before after his father was kicked out. While his mother and older brother were delighted to have him, Tulley claimed that the house was too small for Jerome. And with Jerome, Joshua, and Tulley all living together, things quickly became toxic.
Tulley began drinking every day after being warned about strangling Jerome’s mother. He was also charged with attempted murder after swinging an axe at Joshua a year before his death. Neil, according to Jerome, was a threat to everyone in the family, he told Guildford Crown Court.
“He said we had to kill him,” Jerome testified in court. “I saw it as the only option because he was a danger to everyone in the family, including myself, my brothers, my mother, and even his own children.” “We went to the kitchen, took two knives from the drawer, and attacked him,” he added. After killing him, the brothers fled into a nearby forest, where they planned to commit suicide. The boys did not carry it out and were immediately arrested by police a few days later after confessing to a local bell ringer, “We’re killers.”
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Murderer Or Confused Kids?
Both boys were found guilty in February 2014, and Joshua was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 14 years. “It was your choice to kill him,” Judge Christopher Critchlow told Joshua. You told your brother what you were going to do, and he chose to help you.” “Neil Tulley was in a drunken sleep when he awoke to find himself under knife attack, with little chance of defending himself,” he added. “You primarily carried out the murder with a large knife, and you made a deliberate attempt to kill him.”
Ray, the child killer in Nick Holt’s film, is intended to spark a discussion on how we see young people who commit murder. “Over the previous ten years, numerous youngsters like Ray have gone through the system,” he told Sun Online. We’ll see whether viewers dismiss 12-year-old Ray as a murderer or see the bigger picture of what this youngster has gone through when we place him in homes throughout the nation. The truth is that since the 1960s, there hasn’t been a substantive discussion about putting minors on trial. “A lot has changed since then, and a long time has passed. For kids, courts may be quite frightening places. Others, however, contend that these are society’s most vulnerable individuals and that they need support. “We’ve all made foolish decisions as kids; I know I have.”
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