- Police will take no action against the organisers of 'barbaric' cage fighting
- Organisers defend event as 'perfectly legal'
- Jeremy Hunt condemns the contests
Police will take no action against the organisers of 'barbaric' cage fighting involving children as young as eight, it was confirmed today.
Concerns were raised about whether two boys were put at risk by taking part in a bout at Greenlands Labour Club in Preston, Lancashire, in front of a 250-strong adult audience.
But a spokesman for Lancashire Police said today the force had 'looked into this matter fully and there are no issues for us to pursue'.
Kicking, shoving and grappling each other to the floor, the youngsters were filmed competing in cage fighting contests in front of a baying mob of adults enjoying a night’s entertainment.
Brutal: The boys are not wearing padding or head gear as they grapple and slam each other into the canvas
Upsetting: The young boy seen here is crying in the middle of a fight, and is then attended by medical experts who check if he can carry on with the bout
Battle: Kian MacKinson, nine, with an eight-year-old whose father has asked for his face to be obscured
Parental support: Kian with his father Nick Hartley
These shocking images show the primary school-age boys fighting with no padding, headguards or protection of any kind in what critics have described as ‘like a circus performance’.
The youngsters have been trained to wrestle their opponents into submission as their fathers, pint glasses in hand, look on.
Unlike adult contestants, they are not, in theory, allowed to punch, kick, knee or elbow each other during the competitions, but the rules are inevitably broken.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt today condemned cage fighting among children as young as eight as 'barbaric' and expressed shock over an apparent lack of restrictions on the activity...[Full Article]
