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Police believe games "may have been a factor" in violent assault

Video games have been implicated in a violent assault by a teenage boy on an online gaming buddy.

A 14 year old Scottish boy confessed to cutting the throat of a 13 year old friend whom he had met online playing Gears of War 3 - which is rated R 18+ by PEGI.

"The reporting officer was of the opinion that the violent video games played online by the accused may have been a factor in his conduct," prosecutor Andrew Brown said, according to the Daily Mail.

Scottish Police Federation chairman Brian Docherty also seemed concerned that the offender's gaming habits were related to the crime.

"These games are rated 18 and shouldn’t be played by children of this young age – but online gaming may be outside their parents’ knowledge. We need to look again at what we can do to stop this," he said.

In response, Microsoft pointed out pointed out that it has robust parental controls which would have allowed the youth's parents to control his access to violent games.

Nobody seems to have made any mention of the mechanism by which games are supposed to have enabled this crime, although it was noted that the two boys were arguing about video games when the assult occured and had been trading heated messages via Xbox Live.

UKIE boss Dr Jo Twist told us last year that no credible research has ever established a causal link between violent media and violent actions.

Thanks, Kotaku.

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Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

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Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

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