Drop in criminal kids in the capital

By Cara Sulieman

CHILDREN as young as six have been arrested in the capital in the last year – but police insist they are winning the war on youth crime.

There has been a 25 per cent fall in the number of under-16s being arrested in the last year, but there are still at least six primary school children charged every week

And 312 youngsters aged between six and ten were arrested by Lothian and Borders Police.

There were seven children aged just seven referred to the children’s reporter and a total of 3947 youngsters aged between 11 and 15 charged by police between April 2008 and March this year.

Crimes committed by these under-16s included robbery, assault, housebreaking, joyriding, vandalism and possession of offensive weapons.

Police use YouTube to target youth community

By Cara Sulieman

A SCOTTISH Police force is turning to the internet to help tackle crime by posting informative videos on YouTube.

Fife Constabulary started the scheme at the beginning of the month and have so far uploaded two videos.

Police forces usually encounter the site when investigating crimes that have been filmed on mobile phones – but Fife are determined to put it to better use.

They hope that it will allow them to “communicate” with the youngsters in the community in a “manner and form that they recognise”.

Yobs shatter bus window with snowballs

By Rory Reynolds

POLICE are hunting for three youths after the windscreen of a city centre bus was shattered by snowballs as it drove along a busy main road.

The Travel Dundee bus was attacked by yobs, who ran towards the vehicle pelting snowballs at it drove along Charleston Drive at around 7.50pm on Wednesday.

The bus pulled to a halt and was taken out of service, with the 15 passengers and driver escaping without injury.

The incident, described by Tayside Police as a “serious snowball related crime”, is the second in a week.

On Saturday a National Express Dundee driver was taken to Ninewells Hospital after a snowball sailed through a window, hitting him in the face.

Tram bosses to get conductors on board

The Edinburgh trams

By Cara Sulieman

TRAM bosses have drawn up secret plans to introduce an army of ‘clippies’ to crack down on fare dodgers as they look to recoup the cost of introducing the controversial fleet to the streets of Edinburgh.

Documents being circulated to potential partners reveal that they hope to have around 40 ‘hand-held’ devices made available for ticket police which suggests a ‘blue meanie’ style force to target city commuters already being plagued by over-zealous parking attendants.

That’s despite plans to lavish cash on installing at least 100 ticket ‘validation’ machines on tram platforms and around 60 self serve ticket vending machines across the routes.

The crackdown – which will be subject to an initial 18-month phasing in – also hopes to encourage travellers to spend money on ‘smart cards’ to speed up the process.

Young inventors set for world Lego league prize

By Rory Reynolds

A GROUP of young Scots inventors have their sights on an international prize after reaching the UK finals of the worldwide Lego League Challenge.

The primary six pupils headed off competition from high school technology buffs across Scotland to qualify for the UK finals in Loughborough, Leicestershire, in January.

The kids from Duddingston Primary School in Edinburgh built and programmed the robot, which is made entirely from Lego, to tackle various climate change and transportation themed tasks.

Teacher Anne Macdonald said the team – some of whom are aged 10 – had just about managed to get their heads around programming the robot in time for the competition.

She said: “This has been an extremely exciting opportunity for the pupils.