There were people saying even then that was a crazy sign."Later in life Mr Starr encountered - on a professional basis - a seven- year-old arsonist in San Diego, California. In a recent game he stood on the side line with a youth counsellor who acts as referee, and made all the game calls "Hey, that was a foul, and you didn't call it," he said. He's neither shy nor reticent, though he's well aware of being right at the centre of attention.The probation officer Mr Starr, as he discusses the case, finds himself suddenly remembering a schoolyard thug named Jaspar. "He was the meanest kid in my life, and he was mean to everybody in the world Boy, he used to scare the hell out of me.

He was about two years older than I was, and he was real hard on the critters around there. This is more than a family thing," he says.The San Francisco area, however, is going through the same debate seen in Britain over the James Bulger murder as is Chicago, where in 1994 two 10 and 11-year-old Chicago boys threw a five-year-old out of a 14th floor window. Is the accused suffering a touch of evil, is he a little monster in the making, or simply another child who needs help? Why was he roving the streets at six in the evening? Where, one psychoanalyst asks, was the empathy for a helpless little human?Teachers say that in school he was disruptive, a class clown, and required special help, but was "never evil". Some children in the area told reporters he was cruel to animals; others that he was a bully. The novelty of life inside is wearing off for the boy, Mr Starr says, and he would like to be home "He will adjust to it, he's a tough little kid. He's not sophisticated, he's streetwise, he's a feisty little rascal He's not afraid of anything."He loves basketball.

he should not be released, period."He allegedly threatened a female witness, telling her he would harm her if she went to the police. If convicted, he could spend up to 11 years in juvenile detention. Six is young, Jewett concedes, but the gravity of the case demands prosecution. "We did not just have the right but a responsibility, to interject ourselves as a society. Two days before the attack he had brazenly walked into the house armed with a stick; the child's father, also Ignacio, had ordered him out.