Welcome to the wonderful world of British penal policy.

A ten year old is, in a mind bogglingly silly decision, prosecuted by the CPS for playground banter.

A judge points this out and is then - quelle surprise - lambasted by the usual suspects for speaking words with which no sensible person could disagree:

District Judge Jonathan Finestein said the decision to prosecute the youngster - accused of calling a fellow pupil a "Paki" and a "nigger" - was "political correctness gone mad".

He attacked the police for not "bothering" to prosecute more serious crime such as car theft but readily picking on a "silly" incident.

He added that he used to be called fat at school and said that in the old days the headmaster would have given the children "a good clouting" and sent them on their way.

...Judge Finestein said he thought prosecuting the youngster was "crazy" and urged the Crown Prosecution Service to reverse its decision. He said: "Have we really got to the stage where we are prosecuting 10-year-old boys because of political correctness? I was repeatedly called fat at school. Does this amount to a criminal offence?

"This is political correctness gone mad. It's crazy. Nobody is more against racist abuse than me but these are boys in a playground. This is nonsense."

He did not condone what was supposedly said but doubted the defendant understood bin Laden or al-Qa'eda and said there "must be other ways of dealing with this apart from criminal prosecution".

He added: "In the old days the headmaster would have given them a good clouting."

It was wrong for children to have racist views, he said, but he was "anxious to avoid the criminal conviction of somebody so young".

Addressing the boy's parents, he said: "I'm not blaming you, kids hear these things, but to refer to people as Pakis or refer to their race or religion is wrong."

He told the court: "This is how stupid the system is getting. There are major crimes out there and the police don't bother to prosecute. If you get your car stolen it doesn't matter, but you get two kids falling out because of racist comments - this is nonsense."

You'll struggle to find a word there defending the boy's right to use racist insults. You'll struggle, because the judge says nothing of the sort. What he points out is how OTT and inappropriate are the means by which the boy has been held to account for his words.

One Judith Elderkin, a member of the NUT National Executive (enough said) has condemned the judge for being "out of date" with the way issues are dealt with in schools today. He most certainly is - but the problem is not with the judge but with idiots such as Ms Elderkin, whose attitudes now prevail.

Indeed, the real point of this silly story is that this is the perfect example of our warped criminal justice policies. On the one hand, a ten year old is being dragged through the courts for playground banter. On the other hand, the Home Office has just instructed the police (via its new document, the Gravity Factor Matrix), to let off more law breakers with cautions if they commit any one of more than 60 types of crime, from assault to some types of theft, criminal damage and under-aged sex:

A handful of crimes are listed at level 1 and more than 60 at level 2, for which the sanction is “normally simple caution for a first offence” although the criminal may also receive a conditional caution or charge.

These crimes include possessing cannabis and throwing fireworks. They also cover criminal damage up to £500, theft up to £200, assault and sex with 13-15-year-olds (although there can be many aggravating factors, such as a wide age gap between victim and offender).

Apparently serious crimes can lead to a caution. For example, even when an assault results in a serious injury, the offender may escape a charge if he or she can argue that it was a spontaneous reaction rather than deliberate aggression.

So throw a firework or commit an assault on someone and you will get off with a caution. Call them a name, and you will be dragged through the courts, even as a ten year old.

This is the topsy turvy world we live in thanks to the ideological agenda of those who are attacking the judge.