A three-year-old commits a car crime, a four-year-old is accused of sex offences and a six-year-old is alleged to have been a burglar.

It sounds like horrific events in a drug-addled, gang-ruled, corrupt south American state.

But these evil-doers are among the young children reported for crimes in Cumbria over the past five years.

How have we got to this?

A special request was made to police to reveal crimes alleged to have been carried out by children below the age of criminal responsibility.

Their files show that 478 children aged under 10 were reported for crimes in the last five years.

The largest number – 114 children – were said to have been responsible for assaults that did not lead to an injury.

Is that really worth getting police involved?

Sixty one children – one as young as three – were accused of being responsible for car crimes.

I presume the three year-old’s crime was to dunk his toy car into his bowl of jelly.

How can a three year-old – yes, that’s aged 3 – commit a car crime?

Where is the sense in that?

We’re taking about children so young that they’re not even allowed to play with Lego for fear they might choke themselves.

How have we got to the position where police are having to fill in crime reports on a six year-old, let alone a four year-old and a toddler aged just three?

Did these children knowingly and deliberately behave in a criminal way?

Are six year-olds really sexual predators?

The Jamie Bulger case sent shockwaves crashing through the country. Not quite three, he was lured away from the shopping centre where he had momentarily strayed from his mum

His torturers and kilers were Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, both just 10.

The case prompted a massive national debate about the treatment and punishment of young offenders.

What happened to Bulger was obscene and no person, let alone a child, should be subjected to the abuse he suffered.

But it was a one-off. Unfortunately, it led to the swinging of the pendulum of justice too far.

Now we are reporting on and registering too many youngsters for incidents that simply are not crimes.

Our overstretched police force and social services have much more serious issues to deal with and crimes to investigate than spend crucial time writing reports on pre-school children who might have scratched a car or lashed out at someone in the heat of the moment.

We need to be more grown up about how we treat our children.

That means that the ‘victims’ of the offences have to look at the age of the criminal and ask themselves whether they really are a criminal, or just a silly or a naughty boy who needs a serious warning, rather than a police report.

Parents and relatives of youngsters have to take responsibility for the way their children behave, the respect they have for other people and their property.

And in some circumstances, the parents have to accept responsibility for what their child has done.