Jamie Bulger: Denise, her three other boys & the empty chair…
Nearly three decades after his shocking murder, a new documentary revisits the loss – and legacy - of toddler James Bulger
‘ She let out this terrific scream and then just sort of collapsed in on herself. It was just terrible to hear.’ Denise Fergus had just been told that her missing two-yearold, James Bulger, had been found dead. The young mum, who’d pleaded in press conferences, tears coursing down cheeks, for her baby to be returned to her, was stricken with her loss.
At that moment, in February 1993, there was no clue as to how the toddler had died or whether anyone had been involved. Those horrors were yet to come. All Denise knew was that her worst nightmares had come true: ‘I was a mum without her baby.’
It is a case that is impossible to forget, not just for the family, but for the world.
The day James went missing,
Friday 12 February, started like any other. Denise took her son to The Strand shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool. They were on their way home when Denise made a final call to the butchers and innocently released James while she reached into her pocket for her purse.
‘I shouldn’t have let go of his hand,’ Denise, now 53, says in a new Channel 5 documentary, Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger. ‘It’s hard for me to say it but it’s true. I shouldn’t have let go.’
These details will, of course, never leave the grieving mum. Questioning why she didn’t take James’s buggy with her that day or why, for that splitsecond, she relaxed her grip.
Because those few seconds of separation were all it took. Within a minute and a half, James had been led away by two boys, out of the shopping centre, away from his mum. And safety.
Last month marked the 28th anniversary of his death and so the details of this horrific case are familiar – but no less shocking. Two days after he’d been reported missing, James’s battered and bruised body was found on the train tracks, extinguishing the hope that the family, friends, police and the wider community had of reuniting the toddler with his family.
His tiny body was so ravaged by injuries – no less than 42 – the police initially had no idea what had caused his death.
Blurry CCTV showed James being led away by two boys and police interviewed 60 juveniles. Then a woman came forward to say she’d seen a boy playing truant, his coat covered in paint.
That was what led the police to Jon Venables, and in turn, Robert Thompson. Two 10-year-old boys, barely able to see over the custody desk when they were arrested.
‘It was difficult to consider that anyone could carry out those type of injuries to another individual, certainly to someone as helpless as James, but the idea that it could be done by juveniles or even children… it was off the scale,’ said Jim Fitzsimons, one of the leading detectives on the case.
But, unbelievable as it seemed, their interviews quickly turned into confessions, with each blaming the other.
As the details emerged, they were horrifying. They’d thrown bricks and stones at the toddler and kicked him, before knocking him out with an iron bar.
In November 1993, a jury found them guilty of both abduction and murder, making them the youngest convicted killers in the UK for over 100 years. Mr Justice Morland described the crime as one of ‘unparalleled evil and barbarity’.
Their sentence was appealed on various occasions but they ended up with seven years and eight months in separate secure children’s homes, a verdict that Denise describes as ‘not just a kick in the teeth, it was a stab in the back’.
After being released on lifelong licence in June 2001, the pair were granted new identifies and lifelong anonymity. Since then, Robert Thompson has disappeared into obscurity.
However, Jon Venables has since been jailed twice for having indecent images of child abuse and, having been denied parole in September 2020, remains in prison.
But what about Denise? Is it possible for a mother to get over such a loss?
Denise and James’s dad Ralph eventually separated and she remarried to a man named Stuart, and now has three boys – Michael, 27, Thomas, 22, and Leon, 21 – all of whom appear on the documentary and share a joke about how protective their mum has been.
‘If I go to town with my mates, she’s worried sick, she’s always texting me every five minutes. I can’t even enjoy myself because she’s always texting me,’ laughs Tom.
Now that they’re older, however, they understand Denise’s watchful eye, the reason they weren’t allowed on school trips and why she always made them walk in front of her, never behind.
Michael, her eldest, is going to be a dad himself now. ‘Through what happened to my mum and James… seeing it through my mum’s eyes, it is going to make me more protective and make me hold the baby closer than you’d think anyone could.’
James very much remains part of their lives. ‘ We talk about James a lot. Mum will give us little stories and insights as to what he was like,’ says Michael. ‘He’s always been a character we’ve always wanted to know more about.’
‘He should have been here with us,’ adds Thomas. ‘ We shouldn’t be looking at him on the news, about a kid being murdered.’
‘He is always there with us,’ Leon says firmly.
They always leave an empty chair for James around the Christmas table and Denise and Stuart have set up a charity in his name – a holiday lodge for families who have lost their child, children who have been victims of crime or have suffered bullying, to have a free break.
But, despite all of the ways she has moved on and the many years since James was murdered, Denise still has a gaping hole where her fourth son should be.
‘I think if there is such a thing as closure, I don’t think I’m going to get it sometime soon. At this moment in time, I don’t see closure,’ says Denise.
‘Every single day, even after all of these years, I miss him. I miss him growing up, I missed him going on his own little adventure, whatever he’d become or do. Every single day without James, he’s missed.’
Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger will be shown on Channel 5, Wednesday and Thursday, 10 and 11 March at 9pm.