Not exactly child’s play

Not exactly child’s play


Daniel Carey

IS it just me, or do all the most bizarre stories of recent weeks involve children?
First, there was the six-year-old in America who crashed the family car while trying to drive himself to school. Amazingly, the boy – based in Wicomico Church, Virginia – managed to get ten miles (possibly standing up) before he lost control of the vehicle. Thankfully, he suffered only minor injuries.
The boy’s parents were charged with child endangerment, and the boy and his younger brother are being cared for by foster parents.
Also taken into care were three young children with Nazi-themed names in New Jersey, including a boy called Adolf Hitler. Officials removed Adolf Hitler Campbell and his sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie, from their home in Holland Township last week.
In December, a shop refused to sell a birthday cake to Heath and Deborah Campbell because they asked for three-year-old Adolf Hitler’s name to be iced onto it. Mr Campbell said he named his son after Hitler because he liked the name and because ‘no-one else in the world would have that name’.
But it’s not always the parents who are to blame. The maddest event of the lot concerned a four-year-old who shot his babysitter after the teenager accidentally stepped on the child’s foot.
The child was apparently angry after 18-year-old Nathan Beavers trod on his foot and stormed off to his bedroom in Jackson, Ohio, saying he was going to get a gun. Those present assumed he was going to fetch a toy. But the toddler went to the back bedroom, loaded a 20-gauge single-shot shotgun, returned to the living room, and opened fire. Mr Beavers was taken to hospital and treated for minor pellet wounds to his arms and side.
And let’s not forget the six-year-old and seven-year-old who ‘eloped’ from Hanover in Germany, planning to get married in Africa.
The pair, identified as Mika and Anna-Lena, were said by police to be ‘very much in love’.  and decided to get married in Africa, taking with them as a witness Anna-Lena’s little sister, aged five.
The idea for the romantic trip began when Mika told the two girls about his recent holiday in Italy, while their families celebrated New Year’s Eve together.
As the first dawn of 2009 broke, the trio started to put these plans into action, packing all the essentials for the journey, including sunglasses, swimming trunks, summer clothes and provisions.
While their parents slept, they left their house in the suburbs of Hanover, walked a kilometre up the road to a tram stop from where they took a tram for the central station.
Waiting for a train to the airport, they aroused the attention of a guard who contacted police. Two officers managed to convince them that they would struggle to get to Africa without money or a plane ticket.
Good to see those extra security measures at airports are paying off ...