Man quizzed over boys' YouTube fight

Last Modified: 27 Mar 2008
Source: ITN

Police investigating YouTube footage of two boys being goaded into fighting each other have arrested a 21-year-old man.

The suspect, from Crawley, West Sussex, was held on suspicion of aiding and abetting an assault, a Sussex Police spokesman said.

The arrest was made after footage was posted on YouTube of two boys, aged between ten and 12, trading punches, kicks and headbutts as a man filming the attack encouraged them.

Investigations are ongoing to find the unidentified children who were featured in the video to ensure they were safe.

Police said the images were "appalling" as they launched a joint investigation with officials from the West Sussex Young Persons' Services team.

On Wednesday, officers appealed for information to identify the two boys and the amateur film-maker, who is heard sniggering behind the camera as the pair fight.

He encourages the boys to "smack ... each other", orders them not to hug and says: "You're fighting like girls, fight properly."

During one section, one of the boys looks into the camera and asks: "Kicking is allowed, isn't it?"

And one of the boys shouts "He's crying" after punching the second child in the face.

The video, entitled Lethal Fight (Crawley), is believed to have been shot in a bedroom in the West Sussex town and posted on YouTube five days ago.

A second video, called Lethal Fight 2, was also posted on the video-sharing website and is believed to involve the same two boys fighting in the same bedroom.

Sussex Police were alerted to the videos, which have since been removed from YouTube, by the Brighton Argus newspaper, which offered a £1,000 reward for a successful prosecution.

The footage comes after four women were spared prison in April last year for forcing two toddlers to fight "like dogs" in front of a video camera.

The children's mother Zara Care, along with her sisters Serenza and Danielle Olver and her mother Carole Olver, received a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years after pleading guilty to child cruelty charges at Plymouth Crown Court.

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